


Things I Can't

by reddhede



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Birth, College Student Louis, Discussion of Adoption, M/M, Mpreg, Mpreg Louis, Musician Harry, Supportive Harry, Tiny hint of smut, Unplanned Pregnancy, lots of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:33:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 67,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21579190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reddhede/pseuds/reddhede
Summary: Louis has a plan for his life. He’s going to be the first in his family to finish college. He’s going to be a doctor - the best damn doctor in the country. And he’s going to work his ass off to make sure his younger siblings never have to wonder whether they have the means to pursue their dreams.He doesn’t have space in his plan for a relationship with an effortlessly alluring musician, and certainly not for the child that unexpectedly results from that union. Louis is at a crossroads he never thought to plan for, and now he must make a decision: between what he wants now, and what he wants most.**I added an epilogue
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 114
Kudos: 488





	1. "I'm In A Band"

**Author's Note:**

> It's much easier starting new stories than finishing old ones :) 
> 
> Enjoy!!

“Did you know there’s a part of the body called the ‘anatomical snuffbox’, named so because people used to use it to snort tobacco out of?” Louis called to his boss from his post behind the counter.

Mary didn’t bother poking her head out from the small office as she answered, “I thought you were supposed to be learning to solve people’s health problems, not cause ‘em!”

“Well ‘anatomical snuff box’ is a hell of a lot more interesting than just memorizing ‘the isosceles triangle formation created by the styloid process of the radius as well as two tendons – the extensor pollicis longus and extensor pollicis brevis’,” he recited dryly.

“How, exactly, is learning about how they did drugs 200 years ago supposed to help you cure cancer?”

“You never know what you’re gonna need to know.” At least, that’s what Louis always told himself every time his required classes made him learn about the circulatory systems of earthworms or how to calculate the gravitational pull on an object on Mars or other such nonsense.

This kind of rapport was not uncommon between the two of them during the unusually quiet pre-dawn hours, after the drunken college kids had eaten their fill of greasy eggs but before the commuters came in demanding their morning coffee. It was a rare moment of respite that Louis usually used to catch up on the mountain of coursework that was tailor made to weed out the weak and unmotivated from his pre-med program.

The bell on the door chimed cheerily and Louis sighed in anticipation – in his experience, most encounters with people coming into the diner at 3:30am tended to involve either police, an ungodly amount of vomit, or the destruction of property. As five rowdy boys tumbled in through the door – one of them in a headlock while two others mimed performing indecent acts on him from behind – Louis thought there was a good chance tonight would include all three.

“Fuckin’ hell!” one of them said in a strong Irish accent as he rubbed his hands together to generate some warmth. “It’s fucking freezing out there.”

 _Well, you were walking about in the middle of the night during one of the coldest months of the year,_ Louis thought. “Have a seat anywhere you like and I’ll be with you in a moment,” he said instead.

They naturally gravitated toward the four-person booth under the heater, which left the fifth one to pull a chair over and sit at the end of the table. Louis mindlessly distributed menus and glasses of water, but when the paper straw wrappers were immediately balled up and used as projectiles, he decided to give them a few minutes to fuck around before trying to pin down their orders.

Louis honestly intended to go back to their table in a few minutes, but then he got caught back up in trying to memorize the bones of the wrist. “Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can’t Handle. Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetrum, Pisiform, Trap—“ He closed his eyes and tried to remember the visuals in his textbook. “Some-Scaphoid, Lovers- Lunate, Try-Triquetrum, Positions-Pisiform, That-Trap…ezoid?” He looked down at the drawing. “Trapezium, shit!” Had they really been so short on words when naming the bones of the human body that they had to call two tiny bones right next to each other ‘trapezium’ and ‘trapezoid’? He started over, laying his hand on the table next to the graphic as he pointed to each of the bones in time with the mnemonic. “Some. Lovers. Try. Positions. That- _Trapezium._ They- _Trapezoid._ Can’t. Handle,” he recited.

“Excuse me.”

Louis jumped in surprise at the unexpected presence on the other side of the counter and whacked his hand hard against the cash register. “Fuck,” he cursed under his breath, rubbing at his newly tender wrist.

“Did you hurt your Trapezium?” the unexpected presence teased lightly.

“My—“ Louis looked up and any response he had dried up in his throat. It had been a long time since his body had had such an immediate and visceral reaction to someone, and it effectively shut out any intelligent thought in his brain. He probably could have starved to death before being able to tear himself away from those holographic sometimes-green sometimes-blue eyes.

“We’re, ehm ready for you. If you are.”

The stranger grinned in a way that suggested he knew exactly the effect he had on people, which honestly pissed Louis off enough for him to ignore those amazing dimples and perfect cheekbones and angular jaw and march back off in the direction of their table.

Louis shook off the lingering fuzziness of attraction and instead made a concerted effort to divide his attention equally, making direct eye contact with each of them in attempt to appear unaffected and impartial. He listened and asked follow-up questions when necessary and asked if there was anything else they wanted and he was feeling quite proud of the discipline he’d exercised over his primal instinct as he walked back to the kitchen… with only four orders scrawled on his notepad.

“You must be losing yer charm there, mate. He didn’t even look at ya,” Niall laughed as their waiter walked away with everyone but Harry’s orders.

“Perhaps he wanted me to follow him into the kitchen. So he could take my order _privately_ ,” Harry suggested, getting up from his chair to follow after the boy with ice in his eyes and fire in his veins.

Despite the bravado he put on for his friends, Harry was concerned that he had actually offended or embarrassed their host somehow, and dawned a sheepish look as he pushed open the swinging door that led to the back.

Louis heard the door squeak open, but when he saw a gorgeous head of curly hair pop through, he realized exactly why he’d come looking for him. “Fuck, what do you want?” Louis then realized how crass and cruel that sounded. “No! I mean, fuck I forgot to take your order, so what do you want… like, to order?”

“How do you know I didn’t just come back here to see you?”

Louis’ body seemed to press pause while his brain replayed those words, but… nope, he’d heard correctly. “Did you?”

Harry considered it for a moment, but was undecided on the answer. Instead he pointed out, “Your eggs are burning.”

“Shit! Fuck!” Louis continued to mutter curses as he tossed the ruined eggs into the industrial sink and waved his hands furiously through the air in an attempt to clear some of the smoke. Then he ran around the kitchen, throwing ingredients back into the pan while simultaneously starting some kind of batter and periodically checking something else in the oven.

“Is it just you working back here?” There was a hum of confirmation. “I could help, if you wanted.”

“I was doing fine until you distracted me,” Louis muttered, more to himself than the handsome stranger.

“You find me distracting?”

At this, Louis finally paused. “Did you want to order something?” He felt the man’s eyes roam over his body like a physical touch and clarified, “From the menu?”

Harry pretended to think it over. “Well, I was going to have an omelet. But now that I’ve seen what goes on back here, I think I’ll have… the banana nut pancakes,” he said with a wink before going back out to join his friends.

Hearing this man say things like ‘banana’ and ‘nut’ did funny things to Louis’ insides, so he purposely turned all his attention back to his work. Surely he was speaking in reference to the destroyed eggs, and had not purposely changed his order to the most suggestive thing on the menu. And it certainly didn’t have anything to do with the extra dollop of whipped cream Louis added on the pancakes before bringing out their food.

“One order of scrambled eggs and bacon. One ham and swiss omelet,” he recited as he placed each of the plates down. “One order of biscuits and gravy. One order of just six slices of whole wheat toast.” The boy hadn’t even wanted butter or jam, but Louis knew better than to question the desires of highly intoxicated customers. “And… pancakes.” Louis avoided eye contact as he placed the last plate at the head of the table.

“Are they… _banana nut_?”

Louis was thankful for his perpetually tanned skin when he felt his cheeks heat up, but was saved from having to answer when a euphoric moan from across the table drew everyone’s attention.

“Oh my _god_. This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten. Seriously, dude, best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth,” the one in the far corner, whose head had previously been in a lock, said.

“I’m gonna tell Sarah you said that,” the guy next to him with unnaturally dyed red hair replied.

“It’s bread. Literally just burnt bread,” added the Irishman.

Louis tried to back away slowly, but froze when curly twisted in his chair and locked eyes with him.

“Would you like to join us?” he asked softly – no pressure, just an invitation.

In the amount of time it took Louis to try and come up with a tactful way to decline, the boisterous Irishman spoke up again, “He don’t have time to sit ‘ere chatting with us – look at all these customers he’s got to be seeing to!” He gestured widely around the otherwise vacant space.

“I have a feeling taking care of this table will be a full time job in itself,” Louis said before he could stop himself. Shit. Instead of just plastering on a polite smile and walking away like he usually did, Louis had instead broken a cardinal rule in waiting tables – antagonizing the customer. His _only_ customers, in this case. “I, uhm- I didn’t—“

Instead of the ire or outrage he’d come to expect from rowdy patrons, the whole circle broke out into a fit of laughter. It was infectious, and after a few moments Louis couldn’t help but join in.

“Yer not wrong,” the Irishman – Niall, as he’d introduced himself – conceded.

And that’s how Louis ended up spending the next two hours joking around and talking shit and actually having fun for once in his young adult life. Aside from the occasional forced outing with Liam – his best and, really, only friend – Louis never really had time for socializing. (Although Liam would always claim that he _had_ time, he just never _made_ time.)

For the most part, Louis avoided talking about himself. They were all having a good time, and he didn’t want to bring down the mood with his sob story. He gave the highlights – he worked a lot, went to school, came from a big family – and most of the boys took this at face value and moved on. But that damn curly-headed one kept looking at him with those sparkly, mesmerizing eyes like he could see all the way into Louis’ soul and just kept probing deeper, deeper.

What was it like being the oldest in such a big family?

How was he so sure about what he wanted to do in his career?

How did he maintain his sanity while juggling so many things at the same time?

It was all so… personal. But every time Louis tried to steer the conversation back to Harry, he always managed to flip it right back around again and at one point Louis was fairly certain that he had been talking for about half an hour straight before he caught himself.

“So, ehm… what do you do, then?” Louis asked lamely, after having concluded a 10-minute rant on why tea would always be unequivocally and irrefutably better than coffee.

“I’m in a band.”

Louis just barely refrained from rolling his eyes because he could count at least two dozen “musicians” from his graduating class that had traded their rock star dreams for a steady paycheck.

“I believe you meant to say that _we_ are in a band,” Niall somehow added even though there was no way he had previously been listening to their conversation.

“And you can still afford to eat? You must be pretty good,” Louis said – and though he had tight control over his facial expression, he could not keep the eye roll out of his tone.

“Damn right,” the redhead said, using his silverware like drumsticks to tap out a surprisingly complicated beat. 

The others soon joined in, using some combination of plates and glasses and their own weird vocal ministrations to produce sounds that were actually vaguely reminiscent of instruments. It must have been a song that they’d actually rehearsed, because then came the vocals. Harry sang lead, but traded off parts and harmonies and they were all so committed to the performance that Louis half-expected it to end with someone jumping off the table and landing in a signature pose.

Instead, Mary came scurrying from the back room and clapped furiously as they all took a dramatic bow. “Oh, that was wonderful!” she cooed. “Have some cookies – on the house.” Mary counted half a dozen chocolate chip cookies from the glass dome on the counter as the bell on the door chimed. “Be with you in a moment, dear,” she said to the fully grown man who’d just walked in.

“Mary!” the boys chorused as their treats were passed around, each insisting on pulling her into a hug and thanking her for her generosity.

The service bell by the cash register ding-ed impatiently several times in a row. The suited man was leaning against the counter and staring at them, his arms crossed in irritation because he had to wait an extra 30 seconds for his coffee when he obviously had very important and pressing business matters to attend to.

So he was going to be one of _those_ customers.

“I’ve got this one, Mary,” Louis told her softly, turning away from their merry group. His boss – who, over the years, had become like a second mother to him – was sweet and kind and tended to take things personally, so Louis always tried to shield her as much as possible when it came to unnecessary rudeness.

His bandmates didn’t seem to notice the exchange – perhaps they had not been paying as close attention to Louis as Harry had – but another little piece of his character fell into place in Harry’s mind: Louis was selfless. He had suspected Louis’ sacrificial nature in the way he talked about his work and family, but it was different to see it in action. To watch as he stood there with his head held high as this stranger chewed him out for a minor inconvenience. Louis’ response was even, calm, and his smile must have seemed sincere and apologetic to the man because he ended up leaving a tip, but Harry could tell the expression was forced – it didn’t reach his eyes, which would have crinkled in the corners and narrowed to almost imperceptible slits if it had been genuine.

“What would I do without you, Lou?” Mary asked when he’d returned to the group.

“Probably snuff tobacco straight out of the tin like a heathen, for starters.”

She threw up her hands playfully in exasperation before mumbling something about a waste of head space before disappearing back through her office door.

Before Harry could ask what the hell they were talking about, Louis distributed the checks and reclaimed his spot behind the counter – this was just the first of what would probably be many pre-caffeinated commuters streaming through the door and he didn’t want to be caught off guard again.

They had all planned to just leaving cash on the table, but Harry decided the bills in his wallet were insufficient to cover the meal and instead went up to pay with a card. The casual Louis that had been making snide remarks and seamlessly weaving himself into the group of lads was gone, replaced by the generically pleasant and distant demeanor that his job usually demanded.

Perhaps it had all been in Harry’s head – the shameless flirting, the schoolyard teasing, the genuine interest in everything the other had to say – because when Niall called out some lewd plea for them to just hurry up and fuck each other already because Harry was his ride and he wanted to get home and get to bed, even Louis’ complexion couldn’t hide the color creeping from his sharp cheekbones all the way down his neck.

“Sorry about him. He’s… well, he’s Irish,” Harry said by way of apology.

“S’alright.”

Louis smiled, but it was the same expression he’d worn for Dickhead McBriefcase earlier, and Harry knew better than to believe him. Still, at the last second he couldn’t help himself from hastily scrawling a quick note and his mobile number below his signature before sliding back the receipt.

Louis watched them until they left, almost hoping that a certain curly-haired one would turn around for one last look. But when the door closed and the bell stopped ringing, Louis had to bite back the disappointment churning in his gut. His books were still strewn haphazardly around his work area and they were calling to him – he’d already neglected them for too long anyway.

As he began to process the payment in his hands, he hoped at least he’d get a good tip for his now wasted time. Double the cost of the whole meal was a pretty damn good one, but it wasn’t the dollar amount that caught his attention. In neat, blocky letters was written an explanation for the exorbitant gratuity followed by a series of numbers in an unmistakably recognizable sequence.

_For your studies – you know, in case I need you to save my life one day._

Well. 

This had never happened to Louis before. 

He didn’t usually spend enough time around other people his own age to garner any sort of interest. And on the few occasions when he had, things fell apart quickly when the interested party lost patience with being offensively low on Louis’ very long list of priorities. It had certainly never happened this fast, and though he could basically guarantee that this time would be no different, Louis couldn’t stop thinking about how Harry made him feel when he looked at him – like he was the only person in the room. And living with eight other people, going to school full time, and working three jobs… well, Louis was _never_ the only person in the room.

Which was why, despite his better judgment, Louis found himself carrying around a torn bit of paper in his pocket for the better part of a week, pulling it out every so often just to be reminded of those dimples and that deep voice and those cute little bunny teeth.

Of course Liam noticed, and after the third time asking what Louis was looking at – and being told off for being a nosy twat – pinned Louis against the ground and fished it out of his pocket to look for himself.

“My god, a _suitor_!” Liam clutched at his heart dramatically because had his best friend actually lifted his head out of a book long enough to catch someone’s eye?

Louis hastily crumpled the already worn paper and tossed it in the trash. “Meant to throw that away ages ago, just kept forgetting it was there,” he explained lamely.

“Why, then, did you keep putting it _back_ in your pocket?”

Louis didn’t really have an answer for that, so instead reached for his go-to excuse. “I barely even have time for you anymore, Li – what kind of shit boyfriend would I be to the poor, unsuspecting soul on the other side of that phone call?”

After some more unsuccessful prodding, Liam finally gave up trying to get more information – he knew Louis well enough not to go against his stubborn streak. “Fine, fine. But don’t come wheeling over to my side of the nursing home when your lonely 80-year-old ass needs a checkers partner,” he huffed, leaving Louis to study in his usual corner of the library.

“They’ll have explicit instructions to kill me long before that ever happens,” Louis called after him.

Normally Liam’s jabs about Louis dying alone didn’t bother him – in fact, he loved that Liam was the only one who still unapologetically made them after his mum died. It made things still feel normal between them when everything else in his world had shifted. But today, some part of himself that had been buried deep – the part that still longed to connect deeply and intimately with someone despite the messiness and inevitability of heartbreak – overrode his usually rational sensibility.

Louis kept glancing back at the trashcan and rolled his eyes at himself before finally giving in and fishing out the torn piece of paper. It was a little weathered and smudged, but he was pretty sure it was still legible, and so returned it to its previous place of residence.

After several more failed attempts to commit physiology facts to memory, Louis mumbled a quick, “Oh, for fucks sake,” before pulling out his phone and squinting down at the numbers that were probably now inked into the fabric of his jeans pocket.

Louis didn’t often get nervous, but that first ring flooded his body with adrenaline and he leapt out of his seat and began pacing just to give the neurotransmitters something to do.

 _Ring_. 

It had been weeks and Harry probably wouldn’t even remember him.

 _Ring_.

Harry wouldn’t remember him, but would probably wonder how this random guy got hold of his number.

 _Ring_.

Shit, he really should have put some thought into what he was going to say.

 _Ring_.

With each passing tone, the excitement turned to anxiety, then finally to disappointment. Louis didn’t know what, if anything, he should leave in a voicemail, but he needn’t have worried. Instead of Harry’s deep timbre, the call ended with an automated message saying that the number was no longer in service and requesting that he please try the number again.

Well fuck that.

Louis felt like such an idiot. He should have known the number would be fake. That someone like Harry – the rock star wannabe – wouldn’t just go around handing his actual number out to people. It was all just an ego boost to him, to flirt and use excessive euphemisms and sway his obnoxiously tiny hips at you, to get you all hot and bothered and then leave you wanting more. Harry loved to be loved, and loved to lure people in and then brush them off just because he could.

Well, it was a good thing Louis didn’t have time to date – and if this was any indication of the current climate, he sure as hell didn’t want to anyway. He was just glad he was alone. If Liam had been there to witness it all, Louis would never have been able to live this down. Or worse, he would be encouraged by Louis’ interest and insist on signing him up for some dating website or something.

Louis crawled back onto his favorite study couch and buried his lap with notes and textbooks, tossing the scrap of paper in the trash on his way by. And this time, it stayed there.


	2. Anatomy and Chemistry

“Pleeeease go out with me tonight?”

Louis had been quite clear after telling Liam about the defunct phone number that he never intended on interacting with other people ever again. And to Liam’s credit, he had waited almost two full weeks after the incident before trying to pressure Louis into having a social life again. But he was between girlfriends at the moment and his coworkers were dicks and that left Louis as his sole source of entertainment.

“I’m _busy_ ,” Louis reminded him for the hundredth time.

“You haven’t been to work – any of your works – all week. You can’t be that busy.”

Louis pressed his fingers into the space between his eyebrows in an attempt to relieve the mounting tension there. “I’ve taken the whole week off so that I have time to study for midterms, not so I can go out clubbing.”

“I’m pretty sure studying for too long isn’t actually good for you. You won’t be able to save lives if you kill yourself in the process.”

That was kind of true – cramming might work temporarily, but it didn’t help with long-term memory – but he wasn’t going to give Liam an inch. “And I suppose you know what’s good for me?”

A devilish grin crossed Liam’s face. “You need to loosen up. Or… have someone else loosen you up.”

Louis scoffed. “There are more important things in life than sex, Li.”

“You are only of that opinion because you’ve never had _good_ sex.”

Louis crossed his arms over his chest and gave him a look, but didn’t deny the claim. He firmly believed that good sex was a result of intimacy, and he had never really been that good at letting people get close to him. “The musculature of the human body isn’t going to memorize itself.”

“Please? I’ll buy you all the chips and gravy you can eat.”

It was an enticing proposal – after all, Louis was a bit light on cash due to his temporary break from employment. He’d had to skip breakfast every day this week and he’d forgotten about lunch while making flashcards all afternoon. And so he reasoned that it was solely hunger – and not his engrained and obsessive need to people-please – that convinced him to be extricated from his organized mounds of diagrams and notebooks.

Louis was unfamiliar with the bar Liam pulled to a stop in front of, but that wasn’t exactly a surprise – businesses in this area of the city tended to have a high turnover rate and Louis didn’t get out nearly enough to keep up.

“What is this place?” Louis asked, eyeing the doors skeptically – it looked modern and trendy and it seemed to be the sole destination of every twenty-something pouring in from the street.

“Please, just give it a shot?” Liam begged preemptively, hearing the note of hesitation in his best friend’s question. “They’ve got good music, cheap drinks, and god, _young people_.” 

Liam stared longingly at a group of girls waiting to go in that were wearing skirts much too short to be comfortable in the still-chilly March air and Louis tugged on his sleeve. “Oi! Caveman! You don’t really care about my social wellbeing, you just needed a wingman.”

“The two are not mutually exclusive.” Liam stared down unapologetically and Louis scowled. “Look, there’s no rule that says you can’t both work hard and play hard.”

Logic might dictate otherwise, but whatever… Louis was already here and Liam was his ride and obviously wanted to stay so, “Fine. But you’re making good on those chips you promised.”

It took all of five minutes before Louis and Liam got separated. Louis was swallowed up by the writhing mass of dancers and though the place wasn’t all that big, it was packed and Louis was, well, shorter than he’d ever admit and couldn’t see over the sea of heads even on his tiptoes.

Instinctually moving away from anyone trying to grind on him, Louis ended up pinned against the front of the stage where the band was playing. Now with fairly good visibility of the whole room, Louis again tried to balance on his toes to see if he could find Liam’s quiff poking out amongst the mob.

Unfortunately, the music picked up just then, and with it, the dancers’ gesticulations. A particularly miscalculated hip thrust slammed into Louis’ side and catapulted him onto the stage and directly into the lead singer’s legs. They tumbled and rolled and too many years of big-brothering had Louis instinctually tucking this fully grown man’s head into his chest to keep it from bashing into something until they finally came to a stop at the base of the drum set.

Louis released his hold once reasonably certain that they were stable and was about to apologize profusely to the person who’d ended up flattened beneath him when his eyes locked onto the very ones he’d been trying to forget about for weeks.

“You really know how to sweep a guy off his feet,” Harry teased lightly, plucking out a guitar pick that had somehow gotten nested in Louis’ hair. This wasn’t exactly the situation in which he’d imagined Louis on top of him, but when Louis simply continued to stare at him blankly, he asked, more seriously this time, “Are you alright?”

It was like Louis’ brain had short-circuited, cycling between feeling apologetic and embarrassed and smitten and angry and also the slightest bit turned on so quickly that his mouth couldn’t formulate a coherent response.

So instead, he bolted. 

He made a beeline for the bar, dodging the curious bystanders – equally fascinated at the spectacle and annoyed at the interruption in their entertainment – before sniping a stool out from under one half of a couple that was clearly about to sit down. At their disapproving looks, he muttered an apology and offered the seat back to them.

Louis didn’t drink often, but the bar happened to be the farthest distance from the stage and in order to justify his continued hovering there, he ordered a drink. He continued scanning the audience for Liam as he nursed his cheap beer, but his eyes inevitably kept wandering back to the performers. Well, to one of the performers in particular.

Stage Harry was an entirely different person than the one Louis had met in the diner – one wild and cheeky and both a sex god and a total ham; the other quiet and thoughtful and soft and incredibly kind. They were polar opposites, but somehow both seemed entirely, authentically _Harry_.

But the logical side of Louis’ brain insisted that these two personas could not possibly genuinely exist within the same person. That this was the real Harry – wearing painted on jeans and a shirt that was more open than closed and surrounded by countless adoring fans – and that the Harry he thought he’d met was just some fantasy that had become romanticized in his memory.

It seemed like every time Louis inadvertently glanced that way, Harry seemed to throw in a few extra-suggestive caresses of the microphone – perhaps it was for his benefit, or maybe that was the way Harry always performed. He wouldn’t have been surprised, based on the google-y eyes all the girls watching him were making.

A wave of familiarity washed over him as the next song started playing – a better equipped, but no less enthusiastic, version of the performance he’d witnessed in the diner – and Louis could practically feel Harry’s eyes on him. He wanted to leave, but Liam would have probably just dragged him right back out again. And besides, he didn’t particularly want Harry to think he’d gotten to him because he hadn’t and Louis could do whatever he damn well pleased regardless of what flighty, narcissistic musicians were want to do.

So, Louis downed another drink and did his best to ignore the obnoxiously catchy beat drilling into his brain. He did eventually snag an actual seat, which allowed him to stay still long enough for Liam to find him and make good on his promise of food – which was good, since Louis had consumed more alcohol in one sitting than he had in months and he was feeling more than a little tipsy.

As the next band started their set, Louis saw this as his chance to make a getaway. Having fulfilled his wingman duties – seeing as how Liam had managed to find a temporary residence for his tongue down some girl’s throat – and sufficiently proved to Harry and himself that he was definitely _not_ hot and bothered by either of their encounters, he closed out his tab and made for the door.

Thinking he’d finally managed to escape, Louis was uncharacteristically flustered when a familiar presence stood and blocked his path – groupies in tow.

“Louis,” Harry said by way of greeting.

“I’m surprised you even remember me,” Louis quipped, pretending like even the way his name rolled off Harry’s tongue didn’t sound like music.

“You nearly broke his legs!” the girl to his left said, half in humor half in horror.

But Harry knew what he meant. And, genuinely confused, he leaned in close to Louis’ ear and whispered, “You were the one who never called.”

Louis had every intention of just brushing him off, but he couldn’t think straight with Harry all up in his personal space and smelling so damn delightful that he just blurted out, “ _You_ were the one who gave me a fake number.”

Harry pulled back and met Louis’ glare with a smirk. So he _had_ tried to call him. “Perhaps you couldn’t read my writing.” He held out his hand expectantly and Louis just cocked an eyebrow at him. “If I type it in your phone myself, there won’t be any more danger of miscommunication,” he explained.

Louis’ head was doing that swirly, disorienting emotional rollercoaster thing again and now all the people around them were staring – some with jealousy and some with anticipation like they were watching a damn rom-com or something – and Louis so did not have time for any of this.

“Have a good night, Harry,” he said curtly, starting to walk around the entourage to continue toward his original destination.

“If he doesn’t want your number, I’ll take it!” one of the gorgeous girls shouted, and Louis ignored the twist in his gut that urged him to turn around and give whoever it was a death stare.

Louis made it out to the sidewalk and inhaled deeply of the cool night air. Three meditative breaths later, he felt a wave of heat as someone came to stand next to him, but he didn’t need to open his eyes to know who it was.

“Was I—did I do something wrong? Or inappropriate?” Harry asked, only just refraining from laying a hand on his shoulder for fear of further upsetting him. “I’m sorry if that was- if I was too much.”

He was back to being the quiet, contemplative Harry from the diner and honestly it just made Louis’ head hurt and he sighed. “It’s not you.”

Harry waited to see if there was more to the explanation, but nothing was forthcoming. “Really? You’re going with an ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ defense?”

Louis laughed in spite of himself and looked up into Harry’s wide, searching eyes. “It’s true. My life is… complicated. It’s complicated and chaotic and crazy and I’m busy all the time, so it’s just as well that the call didn’t go through because it’s not like I have time to do anything anyway.”

“You’re doing something tonight,” Harry countered.

“Only because I was dragged here.”

“Well, you’re already out,” Harry reasoned. “We could do something now.”

“That’s the thing, though – I am actually supposed to be doing something else right now.” Harry’s lips formed into a cute little pout and for once Louis actually regretted being so busy. “So you see? Wouldn’t have worked out.”

But Harry wasn’t giving up so easily. “I’m not picky. I can just tag along with whatever you were going to do anyway.”

“You’ll be bored.”

“I highly doubt that – I’ll be fine simply enjoying the view.” The darkness did little to hide the growing color in Louis’ cheeks. “I can give you a ride?”

The suggestion was endlessly more appealing than taking the bus or calling for a car service, and also the more fiscally responsible option. And that, Louis told himself, was the only reason he said, “Okay.”

When they got to the university library, Louis again insisted that Harry did not have to accompany him. But Harry just grabbed a worn notebook from inside his guitar case and vowed to be on his best behavior.

“Is it always this crowded on a Saturday night?” Harry whispered as they weaved around the claimed study areas into the bowels of the library.

“Midterms,” Louis explained, darting toward one of the few available couches. 

As promised, Harry mostly spent his time in companionable silence. He perused the spines of the dusty books, occasionally plucking one off the shelf and reading a few lines. The action felt noble, as if he was honoring the effort of a fellow artist whose work he could appreciate even if he couldn’t understand it – they were in the advanced neurobiology section, after all.

Eventually, he sat down on the floor across from Louis – mostly because all of Louis’ textbooks and papers and various writing/highlighting utensils were occupying the seat next to him – and took out the leather lyric book. Looking at Louis – the boy with the sun in his face and ocean in his eyes – he felt more inspired than usual, and began working out a soft melody that he couldn’t wait to test out on the keyboard back in his flat.

Louis tried to concentrate, but his chosen spot was by a wall of windows, which would have been prime real estate when it was warm and daylight. Now, though, there was a cool draft and the long periods of inactivity left Louis stiff and cold and maybe the slightest bit irritable. And there was really only one other person he could take out that annoyance on.

“I can hear you humming.”

“Do you have to bounce your leg like that?”

“Stop staring at me.”

“Must you write so loudly?”

Louis was being petulant, he knew, but Harry seemed more amused than defensive.

“Am I bothering you?”

“Yes,” Louis snapped, having re-read the same sentence about the insertion points of the quadriceps four times already.

Instead of admitting that this just wasn’t going to work like Louis expected him to, Harry plucked the learning aids off the couch and slid into the newly vacant space. “Well, if I’m bothering you anyway…” He leaned in, trailing his hand lightly down Louis’ arm like he’d been desperate to do back at the bar. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you since that night at the diner.”

Even his whisper sounded too loud in the quiet of the library, and Louis produced a sound somewhere in the back of his throat that might have been a question, “Oh?”

“Have you been thinking about me too?”

Instead of the sultry, seductive tone Louis would have expected, Harry almost sounded unsure. Which was ridiculous because he was talented and charming and sexy as fuck and if there wasn’t currently a giant ass textbook splayed across his lap then Harry would be able to see just exactly how much he was consuming Louis’ thoughts.

But his opportunities for the future depended on his academic prowess, and right now his body was dangerously close to telling his brain to fuck off, which was why it was the honest truth when he whispered back, “I can’t.”

Harry suppressed a groan and forced an aloof, casual demeanor as he slid back down to his designated spot on the floor. “And what exactly is my competition?” he asked genially. “What are you working so hard to study over there?”

“Anatomy.”

The sparks from just moments ago were still lingering in the air between them, and they both broke down into fits of laughter.

As the night progressed, Harry offered up his body numerous times to be Louis’ personal anatomically accurate study aid, but Louis was fairly certain that that would be more of a hindrance to his ability to study than a help. He did, however, let Harry sit next to him on the couch – both for warmth and to quiz him on his painstakingly crafted flashcards. Harry even made up a song to help him remember all 206 bones of the human body; how he ever came up with a rhyme for ‘phalanges’ would forever remain a mystery.

At some point Harry had fallen asleep, and when he awoke it was to the smell of coffee and the continued sounds of highlighters scratching. God, did Louis even know how to stop working?

“Morning,” Louis said, hyper aware of every movement of Harry’s body next to his.

Harry yawned and sat up, stretching his arms over his head. The motion pulled up his t-shirt and he saw Louis’ eyes zero in on the tattoos at the crests of his hips. “Thought you didn’t drink coffee,” he said, nodding toward the cup on the table in front of them.

Louis wrinkled his nose and forcibly returned his focus back to his notes. “I don’t.” He wiggled the cup currently clutched in his hand to allow the handle of the tea bag to give a dramatic wave, secretly pleased that Harry had remembered this fact about him. “You do, though.”

“You got me coffee?”

Louis gave a casual shrug. “You wrote me a song.” Which, annoyingly, he could not get out of his head despite having moved on to memorizing the major veins and arteries.

Harry sipped at his glorious, life-giving coffee and wondered how often Louis’ acts of kindness went unnoticed by the people in his life. He refused to be one of those people. “Alright, then it’s my turn again.”

“What are you—“

“Breakfast.”

Louis looked at him then. Why was Harry doing this? Louis had nearly incapacitated him, then tried to blow him off, then basically ignored him the whole night, and now, “You want to… have breakfast together?” 

“You sound surprised.”

He was. “Harry—“

“I know, you have midterms,” Harry interrupted, sensing that Louis was again about to decline, “but just tell me one thing – would you, if you could?”

Louis sighed. “But I can’t. My life is just… too busy at the moment.”

Harry peeled at the flap of the cardboard sleeve on his coffee cup – that wasn’t exactly an answer. “Life is made up of a series of moments.”

“Is that one of your song lyrics or something?” Louis regretted the sarcasm when Harry’s face turned contemplative. 

“No,” not yet anyway, “just the truth.” He covered his large hand over Louis’ smaller delicate one to still its constant movement. “It’s just… I wasted so many years trying to be what I thought I should be rather than what I actually wanted to be. And my life’s not perfect – I certainly don’t have it all figured out – but I’m happier now than I’ve ever been.”

Louis snatched his hand away and crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “Are you implying that I’m unhappy? That all of this,” he gestured to the piles of papers and writing instruments encircling them, “is just a distraction from my _real_ passion?”

“No, I—“

“Because this is my passion, Harry. This is what I want to be doing with my life.”

There was a sadness in Louis’ eyes, hidden behind the heat of anger, and Harry was certain there was more to the story – a question for another day. “Okay. But it doesn’t have to be the only thing.”

But for Louis, it _was_ his only thing. The only thing that kept him sane while trying to keep all his mum’s medications and treatments straight. The only thing that allowed him to create enough emotional distance to continue to care for her while she withered away before his eyes. And now that she was gone, it was the only thing that still gave him hope and purpose. Because the only good thing that could come from this was that maybe Louis could – if he was smart enough, dedicated enough, worked hard enough – be the reason that someone else’s family never had to go through the same thing.

“Please, just… leave me to my flashcards and diagrams.”

Harry actually got up then and Louis ignored the pang of sadness in his chest – he had no right to feel hurt or rejected; this was literally exactly what he’d just asked for.

“As you wish.” He leaned down, blocking Louis’ light until he looked up. Louis’ face was always a mishmash of emotions – eyes wide in curiosity, nostrils flared in anger, lips turned down in displeasure. He was like a Mr. Potato Head, each feature exhibiting a unique emotion independent of the others, and it made him smile. “How you choose to spend your moments will end up being how you chose to spend your life. And for the record, I think there’s more to you than flashcards and diagrams.”

Louis tried to memorize Harry tall, lean form as he walked away from him, imagining what his life would be like if he was the type of spontaneous, carefree person that would leap up from the couch, spin Harry around, and kiss him until he went cross-eyed.

But he wasn’t. 

Louis was methodical and rational and maybe the slightest bit obsessive, and someone like Harry deserved to be with someone that lived a Hallmark movie life. And even though he’d sat alone in this library for hundreds of hours, it felt more empty now than it ever had before. 

It was easier once the sun came up and warmed him through the windows, but occasionally he still got a whiff of the lingering scent of Harry’s cologne and went right back to sulking again. So when another presence came stumbling across the threshold of his alcove, Louis’ head perked up excitedly. But it was just a confused-looking delivery guy from the restaurant across the street.

“Uhh, are you,” he stopped to read the name on the receipt stapled to the bag in his hands, “Louis?”

“Ehm, yes?”

“Finally. Fuck, there’s, like, a thousand study areas in here. You know we don’t usually deliver to, like, specific rooms in public buildings, right?”

Louis felt as perplexed as this kid looked. “I didn’t order anything.”

“Well, someone came in as soon as we opened and ordered everything on the breakfast menu to be delivered to ‘a boy named Louis with beautiful blue eyes holed up in the back left corner of the university library’,” he recited.

Louis raised his eyebrows – that was very specific. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Eh, not the weirdest place I’ve been sent into. Enjoy,” he said, setting down the bags of food and retracing his steps back to the front of the building.

Louis poked around inside the bags and found a handwritten message taped to one of the containers on top. It was a script that Louis recognized, and he found himself smiling like an idiot.

_I don’t believe our moment is over yet._

_-H_


	3. Summer Lovin'

Over the next several weeks, Louis and Harry never sought each other out directly. However, they often somehow conveniently ended up in the same place at the same time. And it totally wasn’t because Louis happened to go back to the bar where he knew Harry performed, or that Harry happened to frequent the diner where he knew Louis worked.

It got to the point where they could almost expect these “random” encounters. Louis found the whole thing a bit silly, but that didn’t mean he didn’t spend a little extra time styling his hair and picking his outfits on those days.

But then Louis had to be a complete hermit for about two weeks while he studied for and took his finals to close out the semester. He still had a thousand things to do, but there was approximately a week of wiggle room before his siblings got off from school and he was swamped again with childcare duties, and he was thus a little more anxious than usual for Harry to come in at his usual time and sit at his usual table and go through their usual routine of asking Louis to hang out knowing full well that he would decline.

Because maybe, just this once, his answer was going to be different.

Or it would have been, if Harry had showed up.

“Careful, you’re gonna wash straight through the bottom of that cup,” Mary warned as she watched Louis scrub the dishes with unnecessary violence toward the end of his shift. When he appeared to have no intention of relinquishing the bristled brush, she put a gentle hand on his forearm. “Did something happen, love? Are Dan and the girls alright?”

Louis sighed and released the dish from its torture. Mary had given his mum her first job when she was left alone as a young, single mother. She’d given her a raise even when she was only working part time to help her get through nursing school. She’d given Louis and his siblings food on their plates when the hospital bills dried up every cent they had.

She had seen him through the worst moments of his life, and now she was concerned for him… because, what? The cute boy he kept pushing away finally got the message and was staying away? He was being ridiculous.

And besides, Louis had more important things to worry about than whether or not someone _liked_ him. Like the internship his professor suggested he apply for, which required the submission of a research proposal by the end of the summer. He wasn’t particularly thrilled about the idea of willingly spending more time in the library, but if his project was selected, he would be working with Dr. Blake – and a personal recommendation from him would basically guarantee Louis a spot into almost any medical program in the country. So he unruffled his feathers and assured her that everything was fine. Because, in the grand scheme of things, it was.

Still, he may have been petty enough to choose to take a break and have one of the other servers cover his section the next time Harry did come waltzing in.

Unfortunately, Mary seemed to be conspiring against him and allowed Harry back behind the ‘employees only’ door.

“I don’t believe we have any musicians on staff,” Louis said testily when Harry sat in the chair opposite him at the small desk in the office.

“Pretty sure Mary would hire me if I asked,” Harry said, his lopsided grin accentuating those adorable dimples.

It was true. She’d taken a shine to him when he’d put on the show that first night, but now he could be considered a full-on ‘regular’ at the diner. He even cleaned up after himself, wiping down the countertops and taking his dishes to the sink in the kitchen. She drew the line at him actually sweeping the floors and restocking the condiments, though he’d offered to do so on multiple occasions.

“Are you angry with me?”

Yes, but Louis knew he had no right to be. “Of course not. Why would I be angry?”

Harry was unsure whether Louis was outright lying or just in denial. He didn’t have to wonder long, though, as Louis continued of his own accord.

“I mean, it’s not like you’ve come in the diner every Monday and Wednesday like clockwork for the last six weeks. And then one day you don’t. And maybe it’s because you had something better to do, but maybe you were lying dead in a ditch somewhere. Who knows? Certainly not me.”

A smile was making its way back to Harry’s lips. “You were worried about me.” Louis wouldn’t admit it, but his crossed arms and exaggerated scowl said it all. “Well, perhaps this wouldn’t happen again if, you know, we actually _planned_ to spend time together.”

Okay, so this was kind of exactly what Louis had been hoping for. But now that the opportunity was actually in front of him, he was having second thoughts. He knew he liked Harry – liked spending time with him – but it always came back to the whole issue of priorities. Yes, Louis had this one week free, but after that his life would go back to being consumed by work and school and life and it really wasn’t fair to Harry to make him think otherwise. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t still be friends.

Louis blew out a breath, and with it, all the anger that had been building in him the last few days. “I’m sorry, I was—well, I don’t know what I was.”

“May I suggest ‘angry’?”

“No.” Louis whacked him playfully on the arm. “Well, yes. But not at you. Just… irony.” A crinkle formed between Harry’s brows, and Louis was beginning to understand that that was his pensive look. He decided to save him the trouble of trying to figure it out on his own. “Would you like to go somewhere with me tomorrow?”

“Is Louis Tomlinson actually asking me on a date?” Harry asked, sighing and fanning himself dramatically.

“Not a date,” Louis clarified, “but there’s this outdoor movie thing on campus tomorrow night, and it’s a musical so I can’t help if I get really into it, right? And I would bring my sisters but they’re busy and they would just video the whole thing and use it to embarrass me for the rest of time anyway, but you’re, like, a _real_ musician so you probably think it’s stupid and—“

“You want to… hang out with me?” This was the first true indication that Louis actually _wanted_ to spend time with him. Harry was stunned into silence, which only caused Louis to be more flustered and honestly it was too adorable for Harry to interrupt.

“It’s just, I mean… you kept asking. If I wanted to do things. At least I thought that meant you wanted to do things. Like, with me. But if you don’t—or if it was, like, some sort of fun flirty little game of hypotheticals or something but you didn’t _actually_ want to do anything—“

“But _you_ want to hang out with me?”

Louis tapped his fingers on the table in a swift staccato. “I mean, yeah. Of course.”

“Why?” Harry wasn’t looking for anyone to stroke his ego, but Louis had been giving him more than a few mixed signals and he was genuinely curious. Louis gave a vague, dismissive wave of his hand. “No, really. I want to know.”

Louis scoffed and rolled his eyes – wasn’t it obvious? “You know. You’re all, like, cool and charming and you play the guitar and you do this thing when you look at someone that’s, like, so focused that somehow it’s just like you’re the only two people in the room.”

Harry highly doubted that everyone he encountered experienced that exact phenomenon, but he was more than happy that that had been Louis’ experience. “You _like_ me,” he concluded.

Louis waved him off again. “Don’t push it.”

“You like me and you want to _date_ me,” he said, pushing it.

Louis forced his chair back from the table and stood up so he could stare down at Harry for once. “I don’t date. I told you I don’t have time to date so it’s not a date, but I should have known that your ego couldn’t handle that, so just forget it.” He crossed his arms over his chest and turned his nose up in the air, waiting for Harry to leave and confirm his suspicions that Harry wasn’t interested in anything other than a romantic relationship. “Well, do you want to go or not?” he finally prompted.

Harry had been deep in thought, working out some logistics in his head, so that when he spoke again he could honestly say, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

***

The college had broken for summer and all non-locals had already migrated home, so when Harry pulled up to the parking lot beside the open grassy area in the center of the university campus, he expected it to be rather empty. Instead, people were pouring in – families, couples, children, all on bikes or in cars or on foot. It was madness, and he had no idea how he was going to find Louis.

He texted him several times with no response, and Harry very much hoped that this was not some elaborate scheme to pay him back for his absence from the diner – despite how Louis complained about Harry hanging around his place of work all the time negatively affecting his job performance, he was fairly certain that that was just Louis’ way of expressing affection.

There were dozens of pieces of furniture strewn about in semi-organized rows – everything from single dining room chairs to full three-piece sectionals – that appeared to be the provided seating for the night. They were filling up quickly, but there was one vacant couch near the back that caught his eye and he flopped into it before someone else discovered the vacancy. It was baby pink tufted velvet, and once he sat down he wasn’t certain he could get back up. He might not _want_ to get back up. It was that comfortable.

He wanted to save a space for Louis, and also not to appear to be hogging the whole sofa by himself, and so used the cushion next to him to spread out the assortment of candy and snacks he’d brought – a universally accepted display of ‘though this seat is currently unoccupied, it is in fact taken’.

Harry messaged Louis with his current location, but he was still alone when the surrounding lights cut off and people started scrambling to their final destinations in preparation for the show to begin. He was almost about to relinquish his claimed territory when his phone buzzed with a text message from Louis.

_Sorry, just saw these! Be there in a minute – got one more quick thing to take care of._

Well, at least he wasn’t being stood up.

The crowd started clapping and that’s when Harry noticed the figure pacing slowly back and forth in front of the screen.

“Thanks, thanks. Yeah, thank you all for being here,” Louis said into the microphone, which only increased the cheering and drowned him out further. “Alright, alright, pipe down – we got children that need getting to bed sometime tonight,” he joked, earning a laugh from the audience.

Harry watched on in wonder as Louis continued his rapport with the crowd. He admonished them for their raucous behavior one moment and encouraged it in the next. He called people out by name and took it as well as he dished it out. He was sweet and funny and somehow both proud and humble and Harry was starting to suspect he was only scratching the surface of the mystery that was Louis Tomlinson.

As his speech went on, Harry realized this was not just any movie night – it was a charity event. Technically the screening was free, but the items at the concessions stands were gifted by vendors and the furniture was donated to be sold off at the end of the evening and all proceeds were going to go to support the pediatric wing of the hospital.

“Now I know I’m not nearly as beautiful or eloquent as your previous host, but you won’t have to put up with me much longer. Jo started this event because she wanted to help people. To make them happy. She always said that nothing makes the world more beautiful than a smile – and she was very good at making the world a more beautiful place.” Louis cleared his throat as his heart twisted at the memory of his mum’s infectious grin that scrunched up her nose and crinkled the corners of her eyes. He looked into the faces of the crowd – many of whom had been on the receiving end of that grin – and forced a casual smile. “But because she is unable to be here, tonight that job belongs to John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. So, have fun, sing loudly, and go home with a new living room set!”

Louis winged his way through the various spread blankets and lawn chairs and toward the general direction Harry had pointed him in. As he approached, Harry could see him better, and if he hadn’t known it was Louis he probably wouldn’t have recognized him.

“What?” Louis said at his aghast expression. He knew the getup was a bit much – the slicked back hair and tight white t-shirt and leather jacket – but they were watching his favorite movie of all time. “It’s Grease.”

Harry filed away the look for the future – the way the jacket shrunk his waist to impossible proportions and the hair framing his face made his cheekbones look like they could cut glass. There were more pertinent matters to discuss at the moment. “’Some outdoor movie thing’?” he asked, throwing Louis’ own words back at him.

“Well it is. A thing that I happened to organize, run, and host.” Harry mumbled something that might have been _I’m beginning to see why you never have any free time_. “I’m glad you came.” This had always been his mum’s thing, and this was the first time it had been put on since she’d passed. Louis wasn’t sure he was going to be able to say anything without breaking down into tears, but somehow having Harry there – even though he didn’t know about her, or perhaps because he didn’t know about her – helped.

“Told you I would.”

Louis surveyed the wide array of sweets scattered on the cushion. “Am I allowed to sit, or do the chocolates need their own seat?”

Harry pretended to think for a moment. “Well, they were here first.”

“Yeah, but I’ll be here longer,” Louis quipped, snagging the box of cookie dough bites and shimmying the other boxes out of the way with his hips.

Almost as soon as Louis sat down, though, he was unable to sit still. During Summer Nights, he took turns singing as both Danny and Sandra Dee, using the couch as a prop to pose dramatically. During Greased Lightning, he – along with several other diehard fans – performed the dance in tandem with the actors on screen. 

To Harry’s surprise – and delight – Louis had quite an amazing voice. Though Harry was not as familiar with the songs, he was a good enough musician to be able to pick up the notes and provide harmonies to Louis’ melodies. And by the time they got to Hopelessly Devoted To You, most of the crowd had taken to watching the two of them over the actual movie. 

Harry had rather hoped that Louis would also somehow end up in a skintight leather jumpsuit by the end of the movie, but he’d disappeared sometime before the last musical number to begin dismissing the food vendors and start cleaning up and deliver his closing remarks. And Harry took that opportunity to make his own contribution to charity.

Even after the final credits rolled, Harry insisted that he stay at least as long as Louis had to. Together, they picked up trash and locked up doors and helped people load up their purchases from the night into their cars. But when it was all said and done, there was still one piece of furniture standing alone in the middle of the courtyard – the one Louis’ his ass had been occupying most of the night.

“Aren’t you going to offer to help me take my couch to my car?”

Louis whirled on him. “You bought this couch?” Harry grinned and raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. “It’s pink.”

“Pink is the most rock ‘n roll color there is. Besides, it has sentimental value to me.”

It did to Louis too, and he was surprisingly pleased to know where it would end up.

Miraculously, the large sofa managed to just barely fit wedged into the back of Harry’s SUV, and once the doors were safely shut they both hovered awkwardly around the outside of the car.

“I should, ehm, get home I guess,” Louis said, kicking at a rock on the ground. “Buses won’t be running much longer.”

“You took the bus here? Even with all the running around you had to do to get this all set up?”

Louis shrugged. “S’fine. My sister got the shorter end of the stick – needed the car to play chauffer to the littles all afternoon.” Although he suspected Lottie had volunteered to do so as an excuse to get out of coming to the event that night.

“Let me drive you home.”

For some reason, Louis wasn’t ready for Harry to see what his home was like. Harry was living an independent life, following his dreams. Louis couldn’t do that, but… he could pretend for just a little bit longer. “Or I could help you bring it up to your flat?”

Harry’s living space was not what Louis expected – it was all clean lines and modern art and the bright pink couch did not go with the décor in the slightest, but Harry still positioned it proudly in the center of the room. “A statement piece,” he deemed it.

Instruments were shoved into every free inch of space – everything from a full drum set to a single triangle, and many that Louis couldn’t even identify. Some were gathering dust from their places hanging on the wall, but more than a few were dearly loved and nearly worn through.

“You play all of these?” Louis asked in awe.

“Not _well_ , but I have used each one at one point or another.”

Apparently Niall had been listening from his bedroom and chose that moment to make an appearance. “Eh, Hazza’s just being modest – the fucker is obnoxiously good at every one of them.”

Harry gave him a friendly nudge with his shoulder. “I’m passable. But I don’t hold a candle to Niall’s percussion skills.”

Niall scoffed. “Obviously. I said you were good, not better’n me.”

“You… have a roommate,” Louis concluded belatedly, his brain just having caught up with the situation. “You live with Niall.”

“Yep, goin’ on three years now!” Niall called as he made his way into the kitchen.

“Eh, yeah. Sorry I didn’t mention that.” Harry pulled at his bottom lip and Louis wondered if that was a nervous gesture, if Harry was as shy about his own living situation as Louis was. “The rock star salary doesn’t quite live up to the hype.”

“Speakin’ of which,” Niall poked his head back into the room, “the boys’re proper pissed at you.”

Louis assumed he was referring to the rest of the band. “Why would they be pissed at him?”

From behind Louis’ back, Harry was frantically trying to mime for Niall to shut the hell up, but he either didn’t see or didn’t care. “For bailing on the gig at the last minute. They had to call in the Red Herrings to sub for us.” Niall shuddered for dramatic effect.

“What gig?” Louis turned so he could look up into Harry’s eyes. “You were supposed to play tonight?”

Harry glared at Niall as he said, “It’s not a big deal.”

“The _Red Herrings_ , Harry,” Niall reiterated. “Listenin’ to them is a certified form of torture – you know their previous guitar player went insane, right?”

Louis replayed the conversation he’d had with Harry the day before, and he was certain that he’d never mentioned having plans. “Why would you do that? We didn’t have to—”

“Niall’s being dramatic.”

“Doesn’t sound like me,” Niall said, head in the fridge. “We’ll be playin’ to the afternoon crowd of, oh, about three alcoholics from now on.”

Louis’ eyes widened and a knot wedged in his throat – he may have just inadvertently derailed any chance that Harry had of breaking into the music industry. “You should have said something.”

“We may have to play the shit time slot for a couple weeks—“

“Months!” Niall corrected.

“—but the owner loves us. We bring in the largest crowds, and even if they’re pissed, it makes the most business sense to bump us back up to prime time.” Louis’ brows were still fiercely furrowed and Harry smoothed the wrinkles over with the pad of his thumb. “You worry too much.”

“I worry just the right amount.”

Harry moved his hand so that it could curl around Louis’ neck. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the gig, but I’m not sorry for the choice I made.” To Harry, it wasn’t really a choice at all. “I can play music anytime, anywhere. But this time with you? These memories? That’s something I may never get the chance to do again – no way in hell I was going to waste it.”

In that moment, Louis was reminded of his mum – which… weird, but true. There was a period in his life when it was just the two of them against the world, and even after his sisters came along, she always found a way to make him feel special. Precious. Like being with him was a gift and she was always thankful for it. 

And the magical being that was Harry Styles had rekindled it in him once again.

A wave of bittersweet emotion washed over Louis, so swift and so powerful that he practically collapsed against Harry. He buried his face into Harry’s chest and tried to ground himself by focusing on the feeling of their bodies pressed together. Of Harry’s cheek resting on the top of his head. Of the deep rumble echoing in his ear as Harry hummed soothingly. Of Harry’s arms wrapped so tightly around him that he began to wonder how someone so damn skinny could make him feel so wholly enveloped.

The fleeting thought actually made Louis laugh out loud and Harry pulled back to see tiny teardrop stains on his shirt and Louis smiling widely. He offered a confused lopsided smile in return, and asked, “Are you alright?”

“I am.” Louis had been dreading this night ever since the hospital had asked him to continue the tradition, but he actually had a nice time; had smiled more than he had in quite awhile. “Thank you. For tonight.”

“Of course.” He would have relived it a thousand times over if he could.

“Oh my god, this couch is _amazing._ ” Niall had skirted past them at some point with his pilfered snacks and was draped across the whole of the sofa. “So comfortable.”

Harry glanced at the clock – it was after midnight. “No more buses tonight. I can take you home? Or you can crash here. We just got a new couch that I’ve heard is very comfortable.” Niall made some noise of agreement that was probably a little too sexual to be appropriate for their living room. “Whatever you want.”

…Louis didn’t want to go home.


	4. Sleepovers

They stayed up into the wee hours of the morning cracking beers and watching comedy specials on Netflix, and if Harry had had any salacious intentions for the night, he hid them well. If anything, it was Niall who ended up being the most provocative of the three, only dragging himself to his room after having too many drinks and losing too many clothes – upon his own insistence, of course.

After that, they switched over to watching Harry’s genre of choice – romance. The movie he’d chosen was one he’d obviously seen before – he was mouthing all the words – and even though Louis never usually got invested in the touchy-feely stuff, it was important to Harry and he gave it the attention it was due. And even though Harry had seen it so many times before, he still teared up at the emotional climax, and Louis was more moved by that than anything the actors were doing. Harry was kind and soft and empathetic to a fault and it made Louis want to wrap him up in his arms and protect him from all the cruel harshness of the world.

So he did.

Louis pivoted his hips so that his back leaned against the arm of the couch and tugged gently at Harry’s sleeve until his body followed suit. He pulled Harry’s back flush against his chest and squeezed him tightly for a moment before releasing his hold and leaning back into a more relaxed position. Harry took that opportunity to turn on his side, essentially using Louis’ tummy as a pillow while Louis carded his fingers through Harry’s hair.

Louis was apparently more accustomed to late nights and sleep deprivation – or maybe so many years of practice putting his younger siblings to bed just made him extremely adept at making other people fall asleep – because it wasn’t long before Harry was softly snoring in his lap.

Just as Louis had been the last to fall asleep, he was also the first to wake up. His internal body clock had been honed to perfection, and though he still had over an hour until his shift at the diner, the closest bus from here had about half a dozen more stops on its route than his usual line. He tried to extricate himself carefully from their tangle of limbs, but Harry’s eyes popped open the moment Louis pulled away.

“Where’re you going?” he mumbled sleepily and _god_ how was his voice that deep and sexy this early in the morning?

“Well, s _ome_ people have to do the work of the laypeople in order to pay the bills.”

“And you think playin’ in pubs on weekends gets me all this?” He waved his hand around in the general direction of the apartment. “Music is an expensive lifestyle.”

“Harry Styles has a day job?” Louis couldn’t picture it – his presence seemed too... big. Having someone like Harry sit behind a desk or scoop ice cream would be like putting a mustache on an elephant; like, you could try to pass it off as something else, but people were still going to know it’s an elephant. “Do you have to wear a uniform?”

Harry smirked. “Why, do you have a thing for a man in uniform?”

Louis scoffed and got fully up off the couch. “What makes you think I’d have a ‘thing’ for you, uniform or otherwise?”

“Well, we did just sleep together on the first date.”

“That was not a date, and we did not sleep together.” Louis squirmed as Harry continued to stare unwaveringly at him. “Okay, technically we _slept_ together, but we didn’t, like— _stop_!” Harry would not stop waggling his eyebrows suggestively and Louis threw a pillow at him. “I’m going to work.”

Louis spun on his heel and walked toward the kitchen counter where he’d left his wallet and keys. Harry sat up and peered at him over the back of the couch, leaning his chin on his crossed arms.

“At least let me make you breakfast?”

As much as Louis desperately wanted someone to cook for _him_ for once, he really didn’t have the time. “I really do have to get to work – you would live near the least convenient bus line.”

“You really didn’t think I would offer to drive you?”

And… no, Louis really didn’t. He was so used to being the independent one, the responsible one, that he didn’t quite know how to respond to the offer of being taken care of, much less expect it. “Are you only offering because we slept together?” He still refused to refer to their evening as a date.

Harry knew Louis was making a joke, but he wanted to be very clear about something. “Please don’t think that anything I do or offer to do is out of any sort of expectation or obligation. I like you, and I want to spend time with you in whatever way you will allow. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Well, now Louis felt like a right ass. “Ehm, I guess breakfast would be good, yeah.”

Niall emerged from his room at the smell of bacon, still not bothering to put on any more clothes than he’d gone to bed in. He looked at Harry, a little too rumpled and grinning a little too widely, and then to Louis, looking rather much the same. “You two look like you had a good night.”

Harry saw Louis’ shoulders slump and knew the implication would bother him, so when Niall reached for a scrap of food, Harry whacked it with the back of his spatula. “Unlike us heathens, Louis was a perfect gentleman. And if you continue to suggest otherwise, you won’t get so much as a scrambled egg outta me.”

“Sheesh, you’re grumpy in the morning,” Niall said by way of apology, reaching behind his back to snag one of the barely cooked pieces of meat from the pan – he really was like a food ninja. “Mother fucker!” He puffed air into his mouth in an attempt to bring in more air to cool off the still sizzling strip.

“That’s what you get,” Harry chastised, once again threatening him with the utensil.

“Worth it,” Niall said, grabbing another ill-advised piece.

***

After the night at the movies, Louis and Harry started “not dating” more and more often. Either Harry would take Louis to some super obscure indie folk concert or Louis would bring Harry along to some super obscure biological research lecture. Sometimes Harry would hang out where Louis was working and other times Louis would hang out at Harry’s place in between shifts. On particularly packed grueling days, Louis had even taken to spending the night on that couch in Harry’s living room – it was, as advertised, unbelievably comfortable. 

Although they had never explicitly discussed it, there was an unspoken rule that they didn’t go back to Louis’ place. Harry assumed it was because he was embarrassed about his living situation – a tiny shithole of an apartment, maybe – but secretly, and selfishly, Louis really just wanted to keep those two parts of his life separate. Time with Harry had become an escape, a separate little box of paradise that he could visit anytime he needed to let go of the weight of the world for a bit. Putting the two in the same room would shatter the illusion and everything would just get that much more messy and out of control.

But then about halfway through the summer, Harry had had a truly shitty day – like, the kind where you got yelled at for things that weren’t your fault and maybe sort of run over by a car and, somehow, literally _shit on_ – and suddenly he was the one who needed to get away from his own life for a bit. Normally his flat was his sanctuary, but Niall was having a party that night and so he asked – begged – if he could come over to Louis’ instead.

“I don’t care if I have to sleep on the dirty laundry on your closet floor, I just need to… not be here right now. Please?”

Which… Louis could relate. Besides, Harry had put up with Louis’ constant intrusion in his life. And even though Louis doubted his own living situation would offer the same sort of tranquility, the least he could do was let Harry try.

Which was how Louis found himself riding in the front seat of Harry’s car – god, even on Harry’s worst day he’d offered to pick Louis up from work – and directing him to the only home he’d ever known.

“You live here?” Harry sat motionless in the car for a few moments taking in the sight of the large suburban house. “Why the hell have we been hanging out at my place?”

Louis pivoted in his seat and tried to hide the pained expression on his face. “Because it’s more than a little embarrassing that I’m a grown ass man still living in the bedroom I had my first wank in.”

“You—“ Louis continued on in a rush before Harry could unpack _that_ little piece of information.

“Now listen, there are a lot of people in that house. I will do my best to run interference, but if it’s solitude you’re looking for, I suggest you stay inside this vehicle.”

“Your family’s home?” Although Harry’s original intent had been to avoid people as much as possible for the evening, his curiosity was getting the better of him. “Already taking me to meet the parents, eh?”

“I’m serious.”

Harry noticed Louis fixing his hair and straightening his shirt and _why_ did he seem more anxious about all this than Harry did? He closed his hand around Louis’ to still its constant fiddling. “I’ll be fine – parents love me.”

Harry genuinely, unironically winked and Louis had to do a manual reset on his brain before it started having rational thoughts again. “So yeah, it’s more my sisters I’m worried about. Well, and Ernest. See, there’s Lottie and Fizz, and then Daisy and Phoebe and Doris and Ernest. Dan will be here for a few hours, but he works the night shift tonight and will have to head out after dinner. Shit, that means I’ve got to put everyone to bed.” Louis had almost forgotten he was talking to someone else until he got a glimpse of Harry’s politely listening but very confused expression. “Sorry. Just, ehm, make yourself at home and I’ll check in whenever I get the chance.”

“How will I know who is who?”

“Why would you need to know?”

“What if I want to converse with them? Or ask them where the bathroom is? Or otherwise get their attention because I am an insecure musician in need of constant validation?”

Louis was only half-listening, already gathering his things and his thoughts in preparation for the onslaught. “Well half of them are twins, so good luck with that. Just yell “oi!” loudly enough to get their eyes off their phones and then point.”

Honestly, Harry thought Louis had been exaggerating. But the moment the front door opened, Harry was slammed with this wall of… activity. Energy. Barely contained chaos. 

Louis knew that Harry had grown up in a small family, and he worried about throwing him into the deep end with his very not-small family. And adding another person into the mix should have made everything that much crazier. But somehow Harry fit in seamlessly, made everything run smoother. Maybe it was because the younger twins had someone to play with them while Louis was cooking dinner. Maybe it was because the older twins were finally in the company of someone with actual informed opinions about current fashion trends. Or maybe it was because Harry was unusually sweet and knew a lot of things about a lot of things and actually listened to you when you spoke.

Whatever the reason, by the time everyone had been fed and his step-dad had gone off to work and all the little monsters had gotten tucked into bed – a time when he would normally collapse into bed from exhaustion – Louis was actually feeling pretty good.

“You really are like the Energizer bunny,” Harry commented, leaning against the wall and out of the way as Louis continued buzzing around the ground floor cleaning up the kitchen and picking up toys and putting everything back in its place, just to do it all again the next day.

“Nah, you were just like a lightning rod – something shiny and new to attract their attention while I actually got stuff done. Sorry about that, by the way. Guess you might have been better off just going to Niall’s party after all.”

“Absolutely not. Niall’s friends are even laddier than he is. And never in a million years would they do my hair or paint my nails or watch Disney movies with me.” It reminded him of the times he and his own sister used to spend together when they were young. Until tonight, he hadn’t realized how much he missed it.

Harry held his hand out on display so Louis could inspect their handiwork. “Teal really is your color.” Harry hummed in agreement. “Could have used a little more glitter though.”

“That tends to be my philosophy in general.” Louis stilled, having run out of chores to finish up, and Harry asked, “What now?”

Harry looked about as tired as any normal person would be after spending an evening with Louis’ family. “Why don’t you settle in for a movie?” he suggested. “The couch isn’t quite as comfortable as the one at yours, but I reckon you’ll still be able to fall asleep in the middle of it, as per usual.”

“You don’t want to watch it with me?”

Harry’s bottom lip was out in a cute – if unnecessarily dramatic – pout, and it was almost enough to make Louis change his mind. “I’m on a productive streak that I’m not quite ready to quit yet. I was planning on going up and writing a bit more on my research proposal – I told you about that internship, right? No, yeah, I did.”

“Can I come too?”

Louis was about to protest – he was really just going to be reading and researching and working on his computer – but then he remembered the night that Harry literally just sat there and kept him company all night while he studied. He didn’t know why, exactly, Harry always wanted to do that, but, “Sure.”

They migrated to Louis’ bedroom and he put on some music to help him focus – having Harry sprawled out on his bed certainly wasn’t helping his concentration. Although Harry was supposed to be resting, he couldn’t help watching Louis’ little mannerisms – the way he would thoughtlessly hum to random parts of the song; they way his lips pursed and he tapped his pencil, muttering to himself when he was trying to figure out the right words to type; the way he paused for just a second at every sound just to make sure nothing was happening in the rest of the large house that might require his immediate attention.

When Louis got up from his chair to investigate one of the more suspicious creaks in the hall, Harry got up too. When Louis closed the door again, he backed right up into him and had to grab onto his arms for balance. “Is there a particular reason we’re both standing in the middle of the room?” he asked, trying to ignore how firm Harry’s bicep felt beneath his fingertips.

Harry’s mind, it seemed, was on a similar wavelength. “Well, if it’s alright with you, I’d very much like to kiss you now.”

Louis took in the sight of him. He was so mesmerized by the hard lines of Harry’s tattoos standing in stark contrast to the soft plaits his little sisters insisted on braiding into his hair and his mind didn’t have time to tell his mouth to say ‘no’ before his body was nodding his head of its own accord. 

Harry leaned down slowly, as if savoring the dramatic tension, and it all felt surreal – Louis was about to be kissed by this impossibly sweet and interesting man in his childhood bedroom surrounded by his outdated band posters and old school sports trophies. It was enough to make him laugh out loud before their lips actually touched and Harry pulled back.

“Not the usual reaction I go for.” Although in this case, he was happy for any excuse to see Louis smile.

“It’s just… if mum was here, she’d absolutely murder me for having a boy in my room this late.”

And that was when Louis realized his mistake, because of course Harry asked, “Where is your mum anyway?” She was the one Tomlinson that he hadn’t gotten to meet that night.

“I’m sorry.” Louis stepped back, out of Harry’s alluring gravitational pull, and his neurons started reconnecting again. “I shouldn’t have—that would have been a mistake.”

“What am I missing?” Harry asked, closing the distance between them again.

“I’m not looking for a relationship, Harry.”

But Harry knew that. Louis had sidestepped his original question, and he was perceptive enough to realize that the two answers were, in fact, related. “Does that have something to do with where your mum is?”

Louis crossed his arms over his chest defensively, for some reason still desperately trying to hide that part of himself from the world. “It has something to do with where _I_ am. You just don’t understand. You can be carefree and selfish and do whatever you want without a single thought about how it affects anyone else.”

The anger in Louis’ tone was tempered by a hint of longing, but his words still hurt. “That’s not very fair. Just because my responsibilities are different doesn’t mean they’re any less.”

Louis shook his head. “But they are. They are less. Because in the end, you get to do what you want. You’re living life for yourself. But I can’t do that. I have to be more.”

Harry was trying very hard to put together the puzzle pieces Louis was hurling at him, but he was struggling. “Why?”

“Because.” Louis threw his hands up in the air, but Harry seemed content to remain quiet until he continued. But part of him wanted to finally get this out in the open. To give voice to the thoughts that had been driving him ever since his world collapsed around him. “My mum _died_ last year. She’s gone, and I have to give my siblings the time and attention and love that was stolen from them when she passed. I’ve got to find a way to destroy the thing that destroyed her so no one else ever has to lose someone like that. I’ve got to live a life that’s big enough, full enough, meaningful enough to fill the giant gaping _hole_ that her death made in this goddamn world.”

Before Louis knew it, before he could stop it, his eyes erupted with pent up mourning and Harry’s arms were around him, anchoring him to reality when all everything in his mindbodysoul wanted to do was run away from all the pain and helplessness that talking about her had stirred up.

“I’m not enough,” he sobbed. “I know I’ll never be enough, but I’ve got to try. For her.”

Harry waited until the involuntary noises Louis’ throat was producing subsided. Then he pulled back only far enough so that he could look at Louis – his splotchy nose and puffy eyes and trembling lip. He didn’t know what it felt like for Louis, this entirely unfair weight of grief and responsibility, but he understood it. And as driven and together as Louis appeared on the outside, on the inside it was crushing him.

Still with Louis tightly in his arms, Harry guided them a few careful steps toward the bed. He wiped the fringe from out of Louis’ face and pressed his lips to Louis’ forehead. Louis hesitated when Harry took up his previous position on the bed, only he was now slightly more to the side – an invitation for Louis to join him there. 

Louis prided himself on his strength, and seeking further refuge in Harry’s arms might open a door that he might not then be able to close again. But Harry had never needed him to be strong. Had never needed anything from him, in fact, which was probably why he kept spending time with Harry despite his better judgment. The give and take between them was equal, so when they were together Louis could, for once, feel at peace.

And if there was anything Louis needed in this moment, it was peace.

Louis wedged himself against Harry’s body, clinging tightly to his waist and resting his head to listen to the music of Harry’s heart. _It is such a big heart_ , Louis thought absently as his breathing calmed, slowing to match the steady rise and fall of Harry’s chest.

They stayed entwined like that for a long while, and Louis thought that Harry might have fallen asleep. But then his head rose dramatically as Harry pulled in and released a deep breath and he twisted his neck around so that he could look at Harry’s face. His brow was furrowed and there was a hint of sadness in his eyes, and suddenly Louis very much wanted to know what he’d been thinking about all this time.

“What’s going on in that head of yours?”

Harry touched his index finger to the tip of Louis’ nose, which wrinkled in indignation and caused the corner of Harry’s mouth to turn up in a half-smile. “I was just… I was thinking about my dad.”

Louis got the feeling that they were not happy thoughts. “What about him?”

“He left when I was seven.” 

Louis wanted to say something, but he knew from personal experiences that apologies and condolences did little to ease the pain. “That sucks.”

Harry shrugged. “I don’t remember much, but I remember feeling frantic. Helpless. Like, confusion and sadness and anger and desperation all jumbled up together and forming a pit in your stomach.”

Louis hummed in sympathy – he could relate.

“And I remember he said to me, ‘Harry, you’re the man of the house now; it’s up to you to take care of my girls.’ I mean, I’m sure he meant well, but… I just spent years making myself miserable trying to be the ‘man’ I thought everyone expected me to be.”

“But you’re so… _you_.” Louis couldn’t imagine him being anyone else.

Harry hugged him closer. “Thank you. But it wasn’t always that way. I used to keep everything bottled up and buried deep inside and I couldn’t handle it. I withdrew. I started having panic attacks. I dropped out of school and fell into a deep depression.” He very nearly didn’t get back out of it again. “But then I found music and… and it made it worth getting out of bed in the morning again. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen my mum as happy as the day she watched me perform on stage for the first time. Not because we were any good at the time, mind you, but because I was happy. And _that_ is all she ever really wanted for me.”

Louis had a feeling he knew where this was going and he rolled away to prop himself up on his elbow. “Why is it that you keep implying that I am unhappy with my life?”

“I’m not, I’m just… I don’t think you see things entirely clearly sometimes.”

“Okay, I’ll bite.” Louis sat fully up and crossed both his arms and his legs for good measure. “What am I not seeing clearly?”

Harry sat up too and, with a tenderness that melted some of Louis’ icy exterior, threaded his fingers into Louis’ hair and stroked his thumb across Louis’ jaw to the base of his ear. “You are enough, Louis.” Louis cast his eyes away and Harry waited to continue until they came back to his. “You are. You. By yourself. Whether you cure cancer or wait tables or stay at home to take care of your family. Whatever you do, I hope you choose to do it because it’s what you really want.”

The problem was Louis wanted everything. He wanted to go to every school recital and football game. He wanted to get good grades and go to a good school. He wanted to work hard and pay his own way and make things easier for his family. He wanted it all, and as long as he stuck to his plan, every meticulously planned out detail, he was fairly certain he could have it.

But tonight, in this moment, things felt… different. Now there was something new Louis was beginning to want. But maybe, if he was careful – if he was very clear about what their relationship was and, more importantly, what it wasn’t – he could have that too.

Louis got up on his knees, shuffling forward and leaning in close enough for Harry to see the mischievous glint in his eyes. “Does your offer to kiss me still stand?”


	5. Big-Boy Sex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a friendly warning - in case you couldn't tell from the title, this is the chapter with the bit of smut :)

The night they’d spent together in Louis’ bedroom changed things between them slightly – not just the kiss, but also the things they’d shared. Louis had allowed himself to be vulnerable with Harry in a way that he hadn’t even with his own family. It was addicting, being wholly honest with someone you could trust; and now that the door had been opened – both emotionally and physically – Louis could not seem to stop wanting more of it.

Louis still had a few weeks before classes started, and as much time as he had available, he spent with Harry. Their time together always started innocent enough, but often tended to end with swollen lips and bruised necks. 

Niall put up with their incessant pawing at each other for about a month before he randomly – and _loudly_ – announced that he was going over to his brother’s house and that he’d be out for the _whole night_ and gave Harry this pointed look that Louis didn’t really understand until later when they were alone and the sun had gone down and the credits were rolling on The Notebook because for some stupid reason he’d let Harry pick the movie and even though they’d been making out rather than paying attention through most of it, the sudden silence heightened every sound and sensation and soon Louis was on his back and they were grinding on each other like a couple of horny, hormone-crazed teenagers.

“Want you, Lou.” Harry kissed his way down Louis’ neck and chest, teasing him with his tongue through his shirt. “Want all of you.”

“What do you mean?” Louis asked – which was a stupid question with an obvious answer that he definitely would have known if more of his blood had been concentrated in his fucking _brain_ right now, and Harry laughed appropriately.

“I mean, with your consent, I would very much like,” more kisses, “to take you to bed,” a flick of the tongue, “and make you scream in ecstasy until the neighbors file a noise complaint.”

He said it with such confidence that Louis briefly wondered if that had actually happened before. But that was not the foremost concern on his mind. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he said breathlessly, although his body was screaming at him otherwise.

“You’re not sure, but that doesn’t mean you’re not _not_ sure,” Harry argued, artfully grazing his hands over the growing bulge in Louis’ jeans.

Louis gasped a little and he so did not have the mental capacity to handle, like, triple negatives right now. “You know what I mean.”

Harry’s lips were somewhere in the vicinity of Louis’ nipple and when he hummed in response, the vibrations caused an echoing quiver down Louis’ whole body. “What do you mean?” If Louis really wanted him to stop, he was going to have to give him a damn good reason.

“I _mean_ we’re not in a relationship, and sex would… complicate that.”

“We are in a relationship,” Harry countered matter-of-factly, tugging Louis’ shirt down so that he had direct access to the skin beneath.

Harry knew damn well what he meant. “We’re not in a _romantic_ relationship. Things could get mes—can you _stop_ that for a minute!” Louis cried when Harry did that thing with his tongue again and made all rational thought flee from Louis’ mind… again.

“I can be romantic. I’ve got scented candles in the bedroom,” he joked, resting his chin on Louis’ chest so he could look up into his eyes. “No rose petals, but I could sprinkle some red guitar picks around on the sheets.”

Louis gazed down into Harry’s sweet, slightly flushed face and twisted a lock of his hair around his finger. “Summer won’t last forever. And when school does start again… I’m sorry, but that has to come first.” If they did this, Louis could be objective about the biological drive fueling their behavior, but he knew Harry well enough to know that this would mean more to him. “I don’t- I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Harry wasn’t entirely sure it was just his own feelings that Louis was trying to spare. He took his hand and threaded his fingers through Louis’. “I would never want to do anything that might hurt you. So if this is as far as you want to take things, I understand.”

The thing was, a part of Louis – and not just the part that hung between his legs – really wanted to experience what it would be like to be with Harry in a completely raw and uninhibited way. But another part was utterly terrified because Harry was gorgeous and talented and entirely too kind. And – despite the dam of logic and rationalization Louis had built to keep any emotions at bay – he was probably the one person who could leave Louis heartbroken enough to derail everything he’d been working for.

But Harry knew Louis’ boundaries. He tested them, maybe, but still respected them. Harry said he wouldn’t do anything to hurt him. And, strangely enough, Louis believed him.

“So, are we having sex or watching The Notebook again?” Harry asked with a grin when Louis’ eyes found his again.

“Are those my only two options?” Louis said, rolling his eyes.

Well then, there was really only one clear choice…

Louis wasn’t quite sure how he got there – maybe they’d walked, or maybe he was carried, or maybe he’d grown fucking wings and flew – but somehow they both made it into Harry’s bedroom with far fewer clothes than they’d had on in the living room.

Harry seemed just as comfortable stark naked as he did in jeans and a T-shirt. He was lean but deceptively strong, and once Louis had access to every muscled inch of his body, he could see why. Perhaps the effect was aided by the cast shadows in the soft lighting, but god Louis could spend hours exploring all of those crests and valleys. “Fuck me,” he muttered involuntarily.

Harry’s mouth quirked up in a confident smirk. “Is that an exclamation or a request?”

“Both, I think.”

“In that case…” Harry stalked closer to Louis and leaned down as if to capture his lips, but hovered just before skin could touch skin. “Tell me what you want.” Louis shook his head – he honestly didn’t know what he wanted – and Harry ghosted his lips across his jaw until he could whisper in his ear. “Anything you want and nothing you don’t. But I need you to _tell me._ ”

Louis’ body certainly knew what it wanted, but his mind wasn’t so sure. His adult life had seen the occasional hookup – some heavy makeout sessions, some over-the-clothes fondling, and maybe even a hand job or two – but it had been a while since he’d had “big boy sex”. Not really since high school when he’d fumbled around in awkward and unsatisfying experimentation like all his other peers and had since decided that it wasn’t really worth the hype. He had a feeling it would be different this time, and wasn’t sure whether that excited or terrified him.

“Fuck me,” he said again, and this time there was no mistaking his intent.

Despite the crude command, Harry took his time. His foreplay was every bit as dichotomous as his personality – somehow both sweet and rough, gentle and demanding, restrained and wild. He touched Louis in places that Louis had rarely even touched himself. He coordinated the rhythm of his tongue and hands and hips with a level of skill that Louis was certain only a practiced musician could pull off. He made Louis squirm and gasp and moan and Louis cursed himself for the many years he’d wasted not knowing just how much pleasure his body was capable of experiencing.

Louis was already panting in the wake of his second orgasm by the time Harry reached over to his nightstand drawer, but all it took was the distinctive sound of a foil wrapper being torn open for Louis to come crashing back to reality.

It was going to hurt – Louis remembered that much. All the anxious tension that Harry had meticulously teased and kneaded and sucked out of his body came flooding back and he froze. He tried to talk his traitorous brain into releasing its hold on his constricting insides, but it just tightened like a snake squeezing the life out of its struggling prey.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked when he finished his task and turned his attention back to his partner only to find him clutching the sheets with a white-knuckle grip.

“Nothing.” Louis felt a hand slide around his, drawing gentle circles into his skin and coaxing his fingers to release their hold on the fabric. Unfortunately, his internal vice was not so quick to let go. 

“Are you alright? Is it… is this still alright?”

Louis glanced down at the evidence of his own release and then back up into Harry’s concerned eyes and a pang of guilt speared through him. Harry had been so generous and attentive to Louis – not just that night, but ever since he’d met him. Letting him finish what he started – what Louis had asked of him – was the least he could do in return. “It’s okay. I’m ready. Let’s- I’m ready.”

Harry was having a bit of a hard time focusing on anything but the unreleased tension between his legs, but he was fairly certain that Louis was full of shit. Damn his mother for instilling in him such a finely tuned moral compass. “It’s okay if you want to stop. If this is too much.” He wanted this to bring them closer, not make Louis feel awkward or maybe even shameful. “I don’t- I don’t want you to regret anything.”

“It’s not that.” Maybe it was a little that. “I just—“ Louis wriggled out from under Harry to sit up straighter against the headboard. He really did not want to admit that, at the moment, he was equally afraid for his ass as for his heart. “I’m just in my head too much.” Not an uncommon occurrence. “I want to do this for you. Really.”

Harry suppressed the urge to groan – Louis was not making a very strong case that he was doing this for the right reasons. “I want you to do this _with_ me, not _for_ me.”

“Shit, this is all coming out wrong.”

“I think it is coming out exactly the way it’s supposed to, the way you’re actually thinking it. Because you are so used to doing things out of a sense of obligation, but that’s not how this works. Not with me.”

“But I said- I said I wanted to. And I do, uhm, want to.”

Harry would have been more apt to believe him if he could look him in the eye. “Is that because you actually want to or because you think I want you to want to?” 

“I—“ He glanced down at the soiled sheets, his expression helpless. “Both?”

Apparently that was the wrong answer.

“Louis—“

“I’m sorry, I just… I can’t separate the two. You- you were amazing. Made me feel so good. So good, Haz. I wanna make you feel that too.”

“Would you believe me if I said I got as much enjoyment out of that as you did?”

“No.” Mostly because Louis didn’t believe that anyone was even capable of experiencing any more than he just had.

Harry chuckled. “Fair enough. But it had to have been close, I promise.” He watched as Louis continued to war within himself and tucked a finger under his chin to bring his eyes up to meet his gaze. “You don’t owe me anything, Lou. But I would appreciate it if you talked to me.”

Louis was usually careful with what he revealed to people about what he was thinking and feeling, but perhaps that was because few people even bothered to ask. Harry was always asking. “I’m… afraid.”

Harry moved his hand from Louis’ chin to the crook of his neck, his touch more comforting than seductive. “Of what?”

“Fucking everything. I’m afraid it’s going to suck. I’m afraid it’s _not_ going to suck. I’m afraid of losing myself and of things changing between us. I’m afraid of getting your hopes up and then pulling away like I always do – like I always have to do – and then you getting signed by some fancy record label and making a whole album about how much you hate me and then every time I turn on the radio I’ll have to be reminded of what a shitty person I am because _I didn’t fucking stop it_.”

Harry cleared his throat. “First of all, wow.”

“I know.” The inner workings of Louis’ anxious mind could be a bit… much.

“Second of all, I don’t think the rest of the boys would particularly appreciate a debut album focusing entirely on my sex life.” It got a little laugh out of Louis, so Harry counted that as a victory. “And third of all, I could never hate you.”

“But… but it’s so irrational!”

“Feelings aren’t always rational, but that doesn’t mean they should just be dismissed.” He trailed his fingers down Louis’ chest and settled them around the curve of his hip. “So if you don’t think we should do this, for any reason, you are allowed to say so.”

Louis nodded, swallowing his guilt over having received without reciprocating, and made the choice that was probably better in the long run. “I don’t think we should do this.” He expected some sort of disappointment or maybe even anger to flash across Harry’s face, but it remained as it had always been – caring, accepting. “Is that okay?” he asked anyway, just to be sure.

“Of course.” Harry adopted a lopsided grin and rolled to the side, taking care to avoid generating any additional friction against his still painfully full cock. “But on a completely unrelated note, I think I am in immediate need of a very long shower.”

It only took a few minutes of Louis imagining what was going on behind that cracked door – the water streaming down Harry’s taught, flushed skin as he stroked himself, his face framed in a pile of wet curls as he bit his lip to try and maintain a polite volume – before his resolve faltered and he padded his way into the steamy room. Just because he’d pulled the plug on sex didn’t mean that they couldn’t still have a little more fun.

The shower curtain was translucent enough that he could see Harry’s silhouette behind, but not so clear that he could either confirm or deny the images his mind had so gleefully produced. “Can I, ehm, join you?”

Harry poked his head out of the crack between the curtain and the wall. “Want to wash off all my hard work already?” he teased, pulling the fabric back in invitation. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“As you should,” Louis confirmed, stepping into the small space behind Harry.

Harry pivoted, his long arms crashing into Louis, which would have knocked him on his ass if they hadn’t reached their intended destination of his waist. “Oops.”

The brunt of the shower spray, as well as the drops falling from Harry’s taller frame, obscured Louis’ vision, but he didn’t need to see to find Harry’s lips – they were drawn together like magnets as soon as Louis lifted up onto the balls of his feet. “Hi.”

Harry wasn’t quite sure what Louis intended by coming in there when he knew exactly what Harry would be doing, but he almost didn’t care because it was already so much better than doing it alone. Their kisses were unhurried and Louis explored Harry’s body with the same thoroughness and precision with which Harry had explored his. Their hips grinded together as Harry pulled Louis tight against his chest and pictured himself making love to him.

As Harry was getting close, he spun Louis around and grabbed his hips. For a moment, Louis thought he was just going to enter him right then and there – and, in this quite literally steamy moment, he would have been okay with that – but then he felt Harry pressed into the small of his back, situating himself into the space between Louis’ ass cheeks and starting to glide slowly up and down. 

Louis tilted his pelvis back and forth in time with Harry’s movements, growing hard himself as he reached back to tangle his fingers into Harry’s hair, who brought his lips back to the sensitive spot in curve of Louis’ neck. Harry bit down lightly there, almost possessively, and increased his speed. 

“Come for me, love,” Louis whispered, and as if on command, he felt a burst of heat across his back as Harry cried out and clung to Louis’ body like a lifeline.

Harry held him like that for a while, both of them lazily kissing and stroking and washing each other until the water ran cold. In some ways it felt more intimate than if they had just followed through with their initial bedroom plans, and it scared Louis just how content he was to remain in Harry’s arms.

It was almost comical how quickly Harry fell asleep after that, still wrapped up in each other on the bed, but Louis was not so fortunate. He was plagued with phantom sensations from the overload he’d experienced over the last several hours. They were both still naked and Louis tingled everywhere their bodies touched and he couldn’t stop thinking about Harry’s mouth on his cock or the sounds he was making in the shower – moans of desire and pleasure that Louis was the one to draw out of him – and suddenly his body was on fire and so tense for the exact opposite reason he had been before.

Louis tried to ignore these extraordinarily primal urges, but apparently his body was rebelling after having received the slightest bit of sexual satisfaction amidst a lifetime of near celibacy. He tossed and turned and overrode his need for the better part of an hour before shaking Harry awake… perhaps with a little more force and urgency than intended, judging by the alarmed look on his face when he located the source of his rest’s interruption.

“S’wrong?” Harry asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

Louis whined – literally _whined,_ because apparently he was beyond the point of even being able to use words – and threw himself on top of Harry’s body, his tongue invading Harry’s mouth when it popped open in surprise. He didn’t even care how needy or desperate he seemed, or how uncharacteristically forward he was being, or even how entirely hypocritical and confusing he must appear. Louis _needed_ this.

Harry’s body was roused much quicker than his mind, and it wasn’t long before Louis was flat on his back with Harry’s fingers dancing inside him. Only a faint sliver of Louis’ thoughts were focused on anything besides his sense of touch, but he gained just enough composure to give Harry the same courtesy he had been offered. “We don’t have to… do this… if you don’t want.” 

Harry just smirked, amused and endeared by Louis’ elusive mess of emotions. “I want you,” he confirmed. “All of you.”

The words sounded like they meant more than they had just a few hours earlier, but Louis’ body was becoming more and more insistent, and – with a careless abandon that would be considered a mockery in the scientific fields he’d chosen to study – he didn’t have the patience to seek an answer.


	6. Just Friends... Maybe

Okay, so maybe having a horizontal gymnastics partner wasn’t so bad. The last few weeks of summer flew by and had Louis in what was probably the best mood of his life. He became like a third roommate in Harry’s apartment, sleeping over sometimes but also just hanging out to work on his research proposal or crash for a few hours between one job and another.

That was, until Harry casually mentioned the possibility of getting Louis his own key and Louis may have freaked out more than a little. Harry was kidding – kind of – but Louis did become more cautious about how much time he was spending over there. 

He thought the separation would come naturally once classes started, but the opposite seemed true. Harry’s flat was closer to work and school and much quieter than the library or coffee shops he usually went to. And though Louis never outright asked, Harry was always offering to help – babysitting Louis’ siblings with him, making him food, driving him places when he was too tired or to give him a few more desperately needed minutes to prepare for the next in a neverending string of activities.

Despite seeing each other often, though, it rarely felt like they spent any quality time together. Louis had taken on extra credits this semester – perhaps wishful thinking in preparation for the internship he hoped to be awarded next year – and the revert back to his insane schedule was worse than he remembered. He just didn’t have the energy to try and fit quality time into it too.

Not that Harry didn’t try.

Louis had warned him that this would happen, but Harry was persistent about continuing to invite him to do things. Louis refused to feel guilty about always having to decline, because Harry knew what he was getting into when he agreed to their no-strings relationship, but… well, he still felt kind of guilty.

Apparently Harry’s determination equaled – if not exceeded – Louis’ own.

One day, in the middle of his microbiology lecture, the door that led in from the hallway burst open and Harry came strolling in. Time stopped as everyone collectively turned to look toward the interruption, giving Harry the opportunity to locate Louis in the second row of the classroom. As luck would have it, there was an empty seat next to him, allowing Harry to be the one to take it.

“What are you doing here?” Louis hissed as Harry plopped down next to him, an entirely too innocent smile on his face.

“You’re always saying you don’t have time to go out on dates, so I’m bringing the date to you.” As Louis continued to look at him with a mixture of incredulity and wonder and a not insignificant amount of anger, Harry clarified, “It’s a picnic.”

Harry had spread a red and white checkered blanket across the table and had placed upon it a wicker basket with a dramatic-ass French baguette sticking out the side and Louis pressed his fingers into his temple in an attempt to alleviate the mounting tension there. “No shit.”

“Mr. Tomlinson?” the professor asked, arms crossed and eyebrows raised, but Louis was somewhat at a loss for words and Harry was the one who replied.

“I apologize, Dr.—?”

“Marquez.”

“Dr. Marquez. For the interruption. It’ll be like I’m not even here.”

“You _shouldn’t_ be here. This is a classroom.”

“It’s also lunchtime. And Mr. Tomlinson has two more classes after this plus a shift at the tutoring center. Without proper nutrition, he wouldn’t be able to give proper attention to the subject matter you are working very hard to convey. Please? There is so little time for true romance anymore these days.”

Harry’s eyes were wide and innocent and he was wearing his thousand-watt grin and Louis swore he saw the moment his teacher’s resolve faltered. There were a few longing sighs from his classmates, and soon Louis seemed to be the only one still justly upset at what was happening.

Before Harry had the chance to turn him too, Louis gathered up the blanket and all its contents into his arms and made a beeline for the hallway, dragging Harry along behind him.

“You said you didn’t have time to go out anywhere, so I brought the ‘out’ to you,” Harry explained preemptively, still wearing that proud goofy expression.

“What the hell in our entire history together made you think this would be a good idea?” Louis asked, dropping the various items at Harry’s feet. His face fell slightly, and fuck if that wasn’t enough to deflate any anger that Louis had built up. “It was a sweet thought.”

“…but?”

Louis sighed, hating that he always had to be the bad guy when it came to boundaries. “But this is exactly what I was afraid of. I need to focus. Compartmentalize. And I can’t do that when you just, like, show up in the middle of my life whenever you want and distract me from whatever I’m supposed to be doing.”

The smugness was back in Harry’s smile. “You can memorize chemical equations in the middle of a crowded bar, and yet _I_ have the power to distract you?” Louis flushed – either from embarrassment or anger, Harry wasn’t sure – and literally stomped his foot like a child. “You’re cute when you’re mad,” Harry said, reaching out to brush his thumb across Louis’ reddening cheeks.

Louis’ heart did this funny flip-flop thing without his permission and he looked away, suddenly unable to stand the pure adoration in Harry’s eyes. “This needs to stop. You’re asking for more than I have to give.”

“Maybe,” Harry conceded, “but just because I can’t have all of you doesn’t mean I want none of you.” He guided Louis’ chin upward until their gazes met. “I’m sorry. I guess… this was too much.”

“Most people would have loved it.”

Harry booped his index finger to the tip of Louis’ nose. “But you’re not most people.”

Why? Why couldn’t Louis be like most people? “It’s not too late to cut and run.” Part of him would be relieved if Harry made the decision to end things, but an ever-increasing part desperately hoped he wouldn’t.

“Nothing in life worth having ever comes easy.” Harry wrapped his arms around Louis, who relaxed against him long enough that Harry was concerned he might have actually drifted off. “Do you intend on going back to class, or should I make myself more comfortable to continue on as your human pillow?”

“Mmm, plenty comfortable to me,” Louis mumbled into the fabric of Harry’s shirt, snuggling closer into the warmth of his embrace. “Hey,” he protested when Harry pulled away.

Harry chuckled at Louis’ sleepy scowl. “Always leave them wanting more,” he said with a wink. “Now go be a genius for a few more hours – I’ll see you tonight.”

Louis slogged through the rest of his day, fully intent on making good on Harry’s promise to finish out his nap, but when he walked into Harry’s apartment, only Niall was there rummaging through the fridge.

“Where’s Harry?” Louis asked, setting his stuff down by the couch.

“On his way back from meeting with a client, I think.” Louis had never quite figured out what Harry’s other form of employment was, and was about to inquire as such when Niall muttered in a voice he probably wasn’t meant to hear, “Actually has a life outside the two of you, not that you’d know that.”

“What do you mean by that?” If anything, Louis felt bad for how _little_ time he was spending with Harry. “Is this about this afternoon? Is he mad at me for that?”

Niall huffed and turned to face him. “No, of course he’s not – he’s too damn forgiving for his own good – but that doesn’t mean I’m not.”

“You- what’s any of this got to do with you?”

“Nothing, at first. But now Harry’s been missing band practices and rescheduling gigs and bending over fucking backwards to try and be there whenever you give him the time of day. And that, I take issue with.”

Louis felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “I didn’t- I never asked him to do any of that.”

“But you are stringing him along, yeah? I mean, he spends all his time acting like your personal assistant and what does he get out of it?”

Louis knew all too well what it was like being taken advantage of, and it hurt to be accused of doing the same. “I told him we don’t have to do this – any of this. He understands what—“

“He may understand, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t bother him, every time you choose something and someone else over him.”

And they both knew that happened a lot.

“I’ve tried- I’m trying not to hurt him, I’m—“

Niall groaned and rubbed a hand down his face. “I know. You’re a good guy, and I know you mean well. But… fuck, Lou, he’s my best friend and I’m worried about him. I mean, can you at least _try_ to consider his needs once in a while too?”

Niall left before Louis could come up with an answer.

He spent the time alone before Harry got home contemplating Niall’s words. Louis had never intentionally abused the kindnesses offered to him, but maybe he was getting more help than he realized. This thought was reinforced when Harry spent the evening offering to cook dinner or rub his shoulders or help him study. Louis refused, and of course it was Harry who assumed he’d done something wrong.

“I am sorry about today. I was being selfish – just wanted to steal a little more time with you.”

A knot was quickly forming in Louis’ throat because _god_ Harry really was the perfect human being and Louis was shit. Absolute shit. Niall’s words continued to echo in his head and he decided that he could be better. Harry deserved better. “You were right; I’ve been neglecting you lately. I have a bit of time after my last class tomorrow, if you want to have dinner together?”

Harry’s eyes lit up for a moment, but then he frowned. “Aren’t you rubbing elbows with Dr. Blake tomorrow night?”

“Yeah, but before that. I’ve got a couple hours.”

“Won’t you be using that time obsessively overprepare an unnecessary pitch for your research proposal then?”

“It’s not unnecessary – personal connections make greater impressions – and why are you suddenly so reluctant to spend time with me? Do you already have plans to see your other boyfriend?” He was teasing, but they’d never really discussed exclusivity in… whatever it was they were doing, and it was thus a legitimate possibility.

“Of course not – as it is, there aren’t enough hours in the day to even successfully woo _you_!”

“I—“ The knot grew and choked off any sound Louis had intended on making. Niall was right. He was right and Louis didn’t see it happening. Or maybe he didn’t want to see it, which… fuck, didn’t that just make it all that much worse?

“Hey, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

Shit, why _was_ he crying? Louis blamed Harry – he’d cried more since meeting Harry than the rest of his life combined. “Because you’ve been missing band rehearsals and spending all your free time waiting on me hand and foot and generally rearranging your whole life around me and that’s not fucking fair to you.”

“Hey—“

Louis got up from the couch before Harry could comfort him with his touch, which always produced some sort of magical voodoo that made Louis forget all the terrible things he knew he deserved to feel. “You shouldn’t be wasting your time with me. There are a million better options out there – you’re perfect.”

Harry snorted. “M’not.”

“Pretty damn close. You’re nice. Like, irresponsibly nice. And brilliant. And you 100% know who you are and what you want. And so, like, even-keeled. I’m starting to think you’re not even capable of raising your voice.”

“That’s because you’ve never played me in a game of Scrabble.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” Harry stood and swiped away the streaks on Louis’ cheeks before placing his hands on his shoulders. “It’s nice that you see those things in me, but you are also overlooking the not-so-nice things. Like how competitive I can be. Obsessive. I get jealous easily, and then I can get petty.”

Louis couldn’t picture it. “You’re being too hard on yourself.” Like when he’d pick apart every little mistake after a set that literally no one in the audience could have possibly noticed. “Always your own worst critic.”

Harry waited, but Louis obviously didn’t see the irony inherent in his own statement. “Is it so hard to believe that you might be doing the same thing? But that when I look at you, all I see is someone incredibly smart and funny and selfless and stubborn in the best possible way?” Harry moved his hands up to the base of Louis’ neck. “And that, if I choose to move some things around in my schedule to accommodate yours, it is because you are _worth_ it?”

Louis couldn’t honestly agree with that, but it did make him feel the slightest bit less guilty about the time they spent together. “So… dinner tomorrow?”

***

When Louis walked into his chem lab the next morning, the smell in the air hit him like a ton of bricks. He clapped a hand over his nose and mouth and looked around, but no one else seemed particularly bothered by the potency of whatever it was they were supposed to be mixing that day.

“Louis!” the TA called, coming over to him.

“Hey, Lisa,” Louis said, forcing his hand away from his mouth.

“You’re coming to the lecture tonight, right?”

Louis would have nodded, but he was afraid the motion of his head would make him even more nauseous.

“Look, I know – who wants to spend their Friday night listening to some dude talk about the latest stem cell therapies, right? But Dr. Blake is moderating and I really think if you talked to him, if he heard how passionate you are about your proposal, you’d have a real shot at that internship!”

Lisa had been the teaching assistant for one of Louis’ previous chemistry classes – one of the few who had ever bothered to learn his name – and she had been one of the handful he’d entrusted to read and make suggestions about his proposal.

“Ehm, that’s the plan. Excuse me,” he said, hurrying past her and back out the door to the hall.

Luckily the bathrooms were only a few doors down, and Louis managed to make into one of the stalls before submitting to his stomach’s desire to turn itself inside out. He hadn’t eaten much that morning, but that didn’t stop the painful dry heaving that made his lungs ache and his eyes burn.

“Shit.”

Louis cleaned up the mess he’d made of the bathroom and himself before venturing back into the hall. He made one more determined attempt to go back into his class, but even nearing the room caused his stomach to churn and he figured the best chance of getting over this bug before the lecture tonight – he was sincerely hoping for a virus or food poisoning over the flu, in which case he was fucked – was to stay hydrated and rest.

But then he remembered that that wasn’t the only thing he had on his schedule for the evening.

Shit.

Louis took out his phone as he made his way toward the main doors. Maybe some fresh air would do him some good.

_Don’t hate me, but would you take a rain check on dinner?_

There was a response before he even got to the exit. _Did something come up? Do you have to work?_

Harry’s first thought had been that something more important had come up and the weight of guilt settled heavily over him again.

_Just feeling poorly – gonna try and get some rest before the lecture._

_I’ll pick you up and you can rest at mine._

As much as Louis wanted to protest, he couldn’t deny that walking all the way to the bus stop and then riding the halting, jerking contraption to the one nearest his neighborhood and then finally making it to his house only to be prodded into action as soon as his sisters got home… well, it didn’t sound like the most appealing option.

There was a crispness to the breeze, but the mid-September air was still warm enough that Louis was lulled nearly to sleep as he sat on the bench waiting for his ride. Well, perhaps he did fall asleep, as the sound of Harry’s voice almost caused him to jump right out of his seat.

“Wow, you do look like shit,” Harry commented when Louis climbed into the passenger seat.

“Did you think I was lying?”

“Well, you’ve turned me down so many times now that I was starting to get the impression you didn’t like me.”

“That’s the exact opposite of my problem,” Louis said before he could stop himself – damn his still half-asleep unfiltered brain. He expected Harry to be looking at him with that arrogant smirk again, but instead his answering smile was sweet and maybe even a little shy. “I do like you, Haz.” So much more than he ever intended.

Harry leaned over and kissed his forehead. “Let’s get you to bed.”

***

The next time Louis opened his eyes, it was dark outside. He wasn’t disoriented, exactly – Harry’s room had become as familiar to him as his own – but something felt extremely off. He glanced at the clock on his phone, and—

“Shit.” He fumbled out of the bed, knocking his knee hard into the nightstand. “Mother _fucker_!”

“Lou?” Harry poked his head into the room and saw Louis sitting on the bed, body hunched forward as he rubbed at a red spot on his leg. “Everything alright?”

Louis glared at him. “No, everything’s shit. I missed the lecture.” More importantly, he missed his chance for a one-on-one with Dr. Blake. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

Harry held his hands up in defense. “I tried. Your phone went off three times before I intervened, and even then I couldn’t keep you conscious for longer than 30 seconds.”

“You should have woken me up,” he insisted again as his mind showed him, in elaborate detail, all the ways he’d probably just ruined his entire future.

“How? With a bucket of cold water to the face?”

“Yes – something!”

Harry sat down next to him on the bed and placed a hand on Louis’ thigh. “You are exhausted and ill and your body clearly needed the rest.”

“What I needed was to pop a few antacids and keep moving. I can’t just put my life on hold for every minor inconvenience.” Louis got up a little too quickly – although he had nowhere to go now – and both his head and stomach immediately protested the sudden movement. He immediately sat back down on the bed and closed his eyes, suppressing the urge to release a distressed groan.

The bed jiggled as Harry got up, but dipped again a moment later when he slung a cold damp cloth around the back of Louis’ neck. It was heaven.

“You are sick and you missed one lecture. It’s not a big deal; no one is going to fault you for that.”

“I missed a class _and_ the lecture, and it’s a big deal to _me_.” Did Harry really not understand that about him by now?

“It’s going to be okay. You’re brilliant and your work will speak for itself – you work harder than anyone I know.”

Maybe that was true, but Louis still felt utterly disappointed in himself. “This sucks.”

Harry rubbed a hand up and down his back. “I know. But. I made chicken noodle soup and called Mary to tell her you probably wouldn’t be making it to work in the morning. Honestly I don’t know how you’ve survived this long without me.”

The words were said in jest, but to Louis it felt like an insult. Like he couldn’t take care of himself. Like he could no longer count on his own independence and force of will to succeed without any else’s help. And also maybe he still felt the sting of the truth of Niall’s words about how much Harry was always pouring into him and how little Louis gave in return. He couldn’t even manage to accomplish one dinner without making it all about himself.

“I was fine before you came into my life, and I’ll be fine long after you’re gone.” This time when Louis got up, he ignored the stars that momentarily clouded his vision and swallowed against the bile threatening to come up his throat.

“Where are you going?” Harry asked, following Louis as he slowly made his way into the living room.

“Home.”

“Why?”

Louis glanced at Niall, who had already tucked into the contents of the pots on the stove, before setting his face and looking Harry straight in the eye. “Because this isn’t working anymore.” If it ever was. “We want different things.”

“We want some of the same things too.”

“Harry—“

“No, listen to me. I know. I know your life is full. I know your schedule is insane. I know you have a plan, and I know that I’ve never been a part of it.”

He said it so matter-of-factly, and the worst part was that it was true. Louis had never really made room for Harry in his life – he’d just sort of stuck him wherever there happened to be a tiny bit of open space. “That’s what I’ve been—“

“I hadn’t finished.”

“Alright, then, what?”

“I know what you want, Louis. You’ve made it very clear. But… what makes you think I don’t want that too? For you to succeed. To cure cancer. To be happy and fulfilled and get everything you’ve ever wanted.” He closed the distance between them and wrapped a hand around Louis’ waist. “I had only hoped that one day, I – us – would be something you wanted too.”

Harry started to lean in, and a part of Louis knew deep down that if he let Harry kiss him, that there would be no turning back. That there would be no way to end this in anything but heartbreak. Their lips touched for the barest of seconds before Louis pulled away – he was always pulling away first.

“I’m sorry, Haz.”

Louis grabbed his things and headed toward the door. He wasn’t strong enough to look back at Harry again, but he caught the guilty expression Niall was wearing as he crossed into the hallway.

He held it together as far as the next block when his phone buzzed with an incoming text message that somehow made his heart both soar and sink at the same time.

_I still don’t believe our moment is over yet. –H_

For some reason, Louis was starting to believe the same thing.


	7. Heartbeat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two chapters in two days? it's a Christmas miracle!! :)

The next few weeks were hard. Like, ridiculously hard. Every morning was a fight to get out of bed. Every meal was a struggle to keep the food from coming back up again. And every encounter with every disgruntled customer or bickering sister was a fucking battle of wills between Louis’ temper and their resolve. More often than not, Louis was on the losing end of that battle.

If Louis had cut himself off from Harry to prove to himself that he didn’t need anyone else, he was failing. Miserably.

Had Louis always been this tired and achy and irritable when he was on his own and he just hadn’t noticed because that was his normal back then? Perhaps now that his body had been allowed a somewhat manageable schedule for a while, it was protesting having to go back to unhealthy habits. Not that it mattered – he’d always just powered through and done whatever he had to do to check the next thing off his list.

There were several moments when his resolve faltered – like when he basically had to hold his breath for his entire shift at the diner to keep from gagging every time he had to go back into the kitchen, or when he literally fell asleep in the middle of one of his elective courses – but he was too stubborn to admit that maybe he just wasn’t as strong as he used to be. And instead of softening his self imposed isolation, Louis reasoned that if being with Harry had made him weak, perhaps avoiding him would allow his body to readjust and adapt once again.

When Liam came over to his house to help him hand out candy for Halloween while the littles were out collecting it, he’d brought takeaway Indian with him and Louis was grateful for the reprieve of not having to cook dinner for one night. Normally, curry was one of Louis’ favorites, but of course as soon as the smell hit him he was fighting the urge to gag.

“M’not hungry,” Louis insisted with a grimace when Liam pushed one of the containers toward him.

“Want some of mine instead?”

Liam’s selection was covered in some god-awful green goop, and, “No, not even a little.”

“Come on, would it kill you to consume a vegetable every now and again?”

Liam shoved a spoonful toward Louis mouth and somehow the concoction smelled even worse than it looked.

The doorbell rang and Louis shoved the candy bowl into Liam’s hands while he booked it to the downstairs bathroom to heave up the little bit of chocolate that had thus far constituted his diet for the day.

Liam hovered in the doorway by the time Louis spat out the last bits of bile into the toilet. “Twat,” he said, fully blaming Liam for bringing about this disgusting display.

“Shit, Lou, you’re still not better?”

“Obviously not.” Louis got up and rinsed his mouth out with some water from the tap.

Liam studied his best friend’s appearance a little more carefully. He seemed… smaller. Well, moreso than usual. Thinner and more hunched over, like it was taking an unusual amount of effort just to remain upright. “It’s been a while now, maybe you should see someone about that.”

Louis noticed Liam giving him a once-over and straightened up to his full height, but his posture couldn’t erase the dark circles under his eyes. “M’fine, my tastebuds just happen to be a little more refined than yours.”

“Says the boy who dips everything in ranch dressing.”

“Ranch is like salt – adding a little makes everything taste better. Now quit motherin’ me, I’m not sick.”

Liam rolled his eyes – it was typical for Louis to dismiss his own problems when they forced him to become the center of attention. He was probably only digging his heels in about not being sick because Liam was the one who suggested it. “I might have asked if you were pregnant if I thought you could remove the stick up your ass long enough for a dick to go there.”

When Louis went quiet, Liam assumed he was just ignoring him because he was still pissed off – not an unusual response to his teasing – but internally, Louis was panicking.

Because Liam was right.

He was fucking _right._

Louis had all the classic signs, some of which Liam could not possibly have been aware of, and which he’d seen his mother suffer through half a dozen times. He was tired all the time and everything made him nauseous and he couldn’t for the life of him stop crying at the stupidest little things – like the other day when he’d dropped his pencil and it had rolled too far away for him to reach it and he really really didn’t want to have to get out of his seat to retrieve it and one of his classmates picked it up and handed it to him and he was so grateful that the waterworks flowed for about 10 minutes straight.

Fuck, he was totally pregnant.

But no. No, he couldn’t be. He- they’d used protection. Every time. He was certain of it. Harry had even bought new condoms on the off chance that any leftover ones he’d had were damaged or expired.

He couldn’t be pregnant.

It was all in his head – and Liam’s fault for opening his big mouth and putting the idea in there in the first place. No, Louis was just overworked and probably actually sick and was now forcing his symptoms to fit the diagnosis that his brain had already latched onto. That was all this was – confirmation bias.

Which was why it wasn’t a big deal that he didn’t tell anyone about the doctor’s appointment he made. Or that he took the bus there by himself and waited too long in the reception area alone. Or that they asked him about his sexual history and instructed him to pee in a cup and wait too long again in the tiny exam room.

It wasn’t a big deal because they probably came to the same initial conclusion that Louis had. But when the results of the test came back, they could start looking into the _actual_ cause of Louis’ symptoms and he could finally start to get his life back to normal.

Even when the doctor came in and told him that the pregnancy test was positive, Louis had done so well convincing himself otherwise that he honestly didn’t believe him.

“No.”

“You… didn’t know you were pregnant?” Dr. Archer asked.

“No, I know I’m not pregnant.” He refused to believe his body would betray him like that; there had to be another explanation.

“But the test—“

“Tests aren’t 100% accurate.” Louis was in the process of studying medicine; he knew no diagnosis was entirely definitive.

The doctor was a bit flustered as to how to handle an outright denial. “It’s unlikely that the test is wrong, Mr. Tomlinson. Is there a particular reason you are so certain you’re not pregnant?”

Louis gave the same speech he’d been giving to himself. “We used protection every time. So either the test is a false positive or one of the condoms failed. Either way, I’m falling into a small minority here.” And he was going to go with the one that didn’t completely ruin his life.

Dr. Archer suggested doing an ultrasound just to be sure – although Louis seemed to be the only one who wasn’t sure – and Louis’ first instinct was to refuse. But that was irrational. If he wanted this doctor to take a new diagnosis seriously, he had to be convinced Louis was right.

Which was how Louis ended up on his back with his shirt hiked up while gel was squeezed on his tummy. The iconic black and white Doppler screen lit up and it didn’t take long for the doctor to find what he was looking for and point it out to Louis. 

“There you have it. Proof positive.” To the doctor’s credit, his primary expression was of empathy and not ‘I told you so’.

Louis’ heart was in his throat, but he managed to suggest, “Maybe it’s a tumor.” Somehow that still seemed like a preferable option.

“It has a heartbeat.” 

Louis looked away then, trying and failing to hold in the tears gathering in his eyes. Yet more evidence that his hormones – hell, his whole fucking life – were out of control.

The doctor had been focusing his attention on the screen and then taking notes on whatever he found there, but then he noticed his patient’s less-than-thrilled reaction. “It’s still early – you’re only about seven or eight weeks, I’d guess,” he said, handing Louis some wipes to clean himself off with. “You still have options.”

Louis continued staring at his bare stomach, but nodded in acknowledgment.

“Would you like a printout of the ultrasound picture to take with you?”

Although he didn’t know why, Louis nodded again and stuffed the image in his back pocket without looking at it again.

It wasn’t until he got home that he took the scan back out and really looked at it for the first time. It appeared little more than an out of focus jelly bean, but it was inside him and Harry and Louis had created it and it had a _heartbeat_ and god he was so incredibly fucked.

Louis always missed his mum, but he would have given anything to have her back in this moment. If she had been here, she would have smacked him in the back of the head for being so foolish. Only to then immediately turn around and excitedly tell everyone she knew that she was going to be a grandma.

But of course she wasn’t here. He never thought anything could make him feel as helpless and confused and terrified and fucking furious as he’d been when she’d gotten sick, but somehow his world was collapsing around him once again.

And just like then, he was entirely at a loss as to how to put the pieces back together into a life he could live with.

***

Louis should tell Harry. He knew he should have told Harry the moment he found out – hell, the moment he even suspected. But honestly Louis couldn’t handle the possibility of Harry either wanting the baby or not wanting the baby, and instead of just being a grownup and telling him what was going on, Louis found himself dodging Harry’s calls and texts and overall just generally being a coward.

Fate decided to give him a little nudge, though, when Harry’s side job clashed with Louis’ world. Apparently, Harry’s mystery career included performing at children’s parties, and his sister had hired him as the entertainment for Doris and Ernest’s birthday party.

“What the hell, Lots,” Louis whispered, pulling her violently to the side when he saw the very person he had been very fastidiously avoiding setting up shop in their backyard.

“Ow!” She yanked her arm out of his grasp. “What are you on about?”

“Really?” He gestured in Harry’s general direction while also trying not to call too much attention to his movements. “You didn’t think I’d notice who was underneath the makeup and sparkly suit?”

Lottie scoffed and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “First of all, the world doesn’t revolve around you – I got a recommendation for this party service from one of the other parents in their class.”

“So it’s a coincidence?” Louis asked, eyebrow cocked in suspicion.

Lottie threw her hands up in the air. “It’s a big company and they probably hire a lot of local talent based on demand and availability. And second of all,” she poked him in the chest, “you’ve been moping around the house in a foul mood for weeks now, so maybe the universe is doing everyone a favor by trying to get you laid.”

Luckily, Lottie didn’t stick around long enough to see Louis turn bright red or the hand that instinctually went to his stomach – to the evidence that sex was the absolute last thing Louis needed at this moment.

As more families arrived and the party progressed, Louis would normally have been a flurry of activity – helping set up the cake and ushering kids to the bathroom and picking up the bits of plastic that seemed to magically appear like confetti wherever they walked. But his eyes never strayed very far from Harry. He was wearing a very colorful and glittery costume and just enough makeup to hint at the ‘clown’ theme, but too expertly applied not to somehow still look hot? God, was Louis going to have a thing for clowns now?

Harry juggled and sang and told jokes and chased the children around the yard. It was so sweet and pure and Louis couldn’t keep his mind from circling back to his own predicament. It wasn’t that Louis didn’t think he could handle raising a kid – babysitting Lottie was the first job he’d ever had. If anything, it was _because_ he had so much experience with kids that he knew just much they required – and whether that was time or money or patience, Louis was pretty sure would never have an excess of any of them to give.

The thought of having to deny Harry the future he saw playing out in front of him was more painful than Louis expected, and actually made him tear up a bit. Even from his careful distance, Harry noticed Louis’ distress and jogged over to him.

“Hey. You… are you okay?” Harry wasn’t quite sure where they stood at the moment, but he thought that was a safe enough question.

If Louis had tried to answer honestly, he probably would have broken down into a blubbering mess. So instead he threw up a wall around his emotions – he’d gotten quite good at it over the years – and adopted a more indifferent demeanor. “Would you mind- could you stay a bit? After the party? I, ehm… we need to talk.”

Harry tried to get a read on Louis, but he could have just as easily been about to propose as asking never to see him again, so Harry contented himself with having to wait until Louis was ready to tell him whatever it was he needed to say. “Of course.”

Louis nodded, his heart now pounding in his ears because _fuck_ he was about to ruin both of their lives. “Good. Just… meet me upstairs whenever you’re done.”

It took several hours for the celebrations to wrap up and the guests to leave, but the time seemed to pass too quickly and Louis still had no idea what to say or how to say it. There was frosting in his hair and a child in his belly and a literal fucking _clown_ on his bed and the whole situation felt so ridiculous that he almost could have laughed. In fact, he may have actually let out some sort of noise of hysteria because Harry was looking at him with a mixture of concern and confusion.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“What?” Louis had been so wrapped up in what he had to say that Harry’s question honestly didn’t register.

“It’s just- you’ve been avoiding me, I think.” He looked down at his hands and fiddled with the ring on his middle finger. “I mean, I know we haven’t been… talking much, but you’d tell me, right? If I’d done something to upset you?”

“No. Or… well, yes. But it’s not—“ Louis willed his mind to focus, but the answers to Harry’s questions were too complicated and he so did not want to be the one to destroy that curiously innocent expression on his face. “Yes, I’ve been avoiding you. And yes, I am upset. But it wasn’t something you did.”

Well, not exactly.

Harry had never seen Louis so… distraught. He could only imagine that something that could rattle him this much had to be on par with what had happened with his mum. “Did something happen? Is your family… I mean, is everyone okay?”

Louis shook his head. “Fine, they’re fine.” He sat down next to Harry on the bed, careful to leave enough space that he wouldn’t be tempted to tuck himself into Harry’s side, and looked up toward the ceiling. “It’s me. I’m—“

The words got stuck in his throat and Harry assumed the worst. Disregarding the intentional distance between them, Harry reached across and threaded his fingers through Louis’, squeezing tightly. “You can talk to me. Whenever you’re ready, I’m here. I’ll be here for you.”

Louis believed him. Which was what gave him the courage to reveal, though in little more than an apologetic whisper, “I’m pregnant.”

There was a long pause during which the only change in Harry’s expression was a slight crinkling in the space between his eyes. “Are you sure?”

Louis pulled out the small black and white ultrasound photo from the drawer in his nightstand and handed it to Harry. The scan was grainy and indistinct, but it still managed to steal the air from Harry’s lungs. Well this was… not what he was expecting.

“How far? I mean, how long- how far along?”

For as good as Louis was at chemical computations, this simple equation took an embarrassingly long time for him to calculate. “Ten weeks, I guess? Almost. Give or take.” 

Ten weeks. Harry tried to remember where they were or what they were doing ten weeks ago – well, he supposed he knew what they were doing, but he was trying to determine how this could have happened. They were both meticulous about using protection for this very reason. Such an unlikely outcome against all statistical odds was what his mother would have referred to as ‘fate’, but judging from the forlorn (and maybe slightly ill) look on Louis’ face, Harry refrained from saying as much.

But at least he wasn’t dying.

“Does your family know?” Harry asked.

“No, I—“ Louis intended to say that he was waiting because he wanted to tell Harry first, but the truth was that he didn’t want to tell anybody. He wanted to bury himself in work and pretend nothing was wrong and have the problem go away on its own. “No. They don’t know.” In fact, as far as they knew, Louis was a celibate virgin nerd who’d never so much as kissed another boy. Well, maybe not Lottie, who’d once walked in on him and his study partner feeling each other up on the couch when she came home from dance class early one day.

As Louis looked down at the picture in Harry’s hands, he realized that the date it was taken was printed along the border, and unless Harry was as horrible at math as Louis seemed to be at that moment, he’d probably figured out that Louis had known about the pregnancy for several weeks already. “I’m sorry – I should have told you as soon as I found out.”

Harry brushed his fingertips along the outline of his little bean. Their little bean. “You have nothing to apologize for. I’m just sorry you’ve been alone in this.”

The words sounded sincere, but Louis found it impossible that Harry could be taking the news this well. So the longer Harry maintained his calm, pensive, thoughtful demeanor, the more worked up Louis felt by comparison. He shouldn’t have been the only one losing his shit. He knew Harry was the youngest in his family – maybe he didn’t quite grasp what a colossal investment babies required. Or maybe Harry was unconcerned because he was planning to walk right out of this house and never see or speak to Louis again. Or maybe… maybe Harry didn’t even think he was the father!

“It’s yours,” Louis blurted out, and Harry looked at him with raised eyebrows – he had never suggested otherwise. “You’re the only one I’ve been with. And I don’t know how it happened – we were being careful. I know we were careful and it shouldn’t have happened. But now there’s a baby. Fuck, Haz, there’s a baby in me and I- I—“ Louis tried to keep his emotions in check, but Harry’s eyes softened as soon as his voice caught. 

“Lou—“

Louis waved him off and attempted to hide his face in his hands. “It’s fine, I’m fine. Just… hormones, I guess.”

Louis let out what was meant to be a casual laugh but it came out as more of a choked sob. Harry was still undecided about how he felt – in a bit of shock, probably – but distress and anxiety were radiating off of Louis in waves and anything Harry might or might not have been feeling was quickly drowned out. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Louis kept repeating over and over, only to be shushed and comforted over and over again in response.

Harry pulled Louis into his lap and nuzzled in close to his neck so he could whisper in his ear. “Hey, it’s okay. We’re okay. We’re gonna figure this out.”

Louis was wrapped up in Harry’s arms and the fact that he never wanted to leave the warmth and safety of that embrace was almost more terrifying than anything else. Anger, despair, fear – those were responses Louis could have understood. But Harry’s quiet acceptance and understanding made his heart ache for the future they could have had if this had all happened at a different time, under different circumstances.

Louis pulled away first, swiping at the moisture beneath his nose and frowning down at the Rorschach test his tears had left on Harry’s costume. “Sorry ‘bout that.” He was sorry about everything, really. “This was supposed to be the part where _you_ get to freak out about this.”

That wasn’t exactly how Harry would have described his reaction. Surprised? Absolutely. Nervous? Totally. Mostly, though, he felt guilty for ever having put Louis in this situation. If he’d just listened to him, heeded his warnings that he neither wanted nor had time for a relationship, then Louis would probably be reading scientific journals or spending time with his family right now instead of locking himself away in his room to cry and stress and resign himself to a future he’d never wanted.

“I guess we should, ehm, discuss what happens now?” Louis suggested when Harry remained silent.

Harry pursed his lips as his eyes scanned Louis’ face. He looked like he was holding on by a very thin thread, and as much as Harry very much wanted to figure out what this radical new development meant for their lives, right now Louis was his first priority. “Are you hungry? I’m no master chef, but I can find my way around a kitchen alright.” Louis looked like he didn’t quite understand the question, so Harry went with something simpler. “Maybe you should just rest. You look… well, like you could use some rest.”

“I don’t- what does that mean?”

“It means we’ve got time. We’ve got time to sort it all out. But for now, is there anything you need?” Louis was beginning to tear up again, and Harry thought perhaps he’d offended his sense of independence. “Please let me take care of you, Lou. Just this once?”

There was an apology in Harry’s tone, but it wasn’t that Louis was upset. It was that Harry’s suggestions were so unbearably sweet and thoughtful because his life had just changed too and his main focus was still on Louis’ wellbeing and it wasn’t until that moment that Louis realized what he truly needed. “Just… stay with me?”

Harry kissed him on the cheek and grinned. “Not going anywhere,” he promised.

Neither of them came out of Louis’ room for the rest of day, but Lottie must have warned off the rest of the Tomlinsons from sticking their noses where they didn’t belong because on any other day Louis would have been summoned at least half a dozen times to settle an argument or make food or help with homework. Not even when Harry snuck out to ferry a few platefuls of leftovers back to their sanctuary did anyone stop to interrogate his motives.

Harry’s tight embrace provided a comfort that Louis was more accustomed to giving than receiving and, having already had more time to process the news, was able to fall into a deep sleep. With Louis blissfully unconscious, Harry allowed himself to finally think, to process, to feel.

And the only word he could come up with to describe how he was feeling was love.

Harry had been in serious relationships before, and at the time he’d have sworn he was head over heels in love. And maybe he was, as far as his heart was capable of understanding, but it never felt like this. This was different. This was the kind of love that settled in your bones and changed the very foundation of who you were because the person you loved wasn’t just with you, they were _in_ you. It was confusing and terrifying and utterly exhilarating, and even though he didn’t for the life of him know what each new day would bring, he did know one thing: he always wanted each of them to end like this, with Louis in his arms.


	8. Wanted

The next morning, Louis woke up more rested than he’d felt in weeks – not unlikely due to his shamelessly using Harry as a human body pillow. His internal clock appeared to be ticking again, as he actually had enough time to get ready for work rather than just stumbling in still only half-dressed and half-asleep.

When Harry stirred from the lack of extra body heat, he was surprised to see Louis in the white button-down and khakis he only ever wore for his job as an office aide. “You’re going to work?”

Louis hopped in place as he tried to put on his shoes while standing. “Yeah?” He quickly gave up and sat on the bed when Harry kept looking at him like he’d grown a second head. “What?”

“I thought- don’t you want to talk about… about everything?”

Louis cocked his head to the side. “But I’ve got work.”

Harry mentally shook himself as he tried to wrap his mind around Louis’ thought processes. “You really can’t take even one day off for something as big as this?”

Louis grabbed his shoes from the floor and, sitting, successfully pulled them on. “I’ll still be pregnant when I get back. But in the meantime I’ve got tuition bills that will need to get paid somehow, plus I need to do the grocery shopping tonight, and I’m pretty sure the twins have decided to take up the very expensive hobby of photography suspiciously close to Christmas,” he finished with a roll of his eyes.

“So you’re just going to go about your normal day like nothing’s changed?” As much as he loved his own job, Harry couldn’t fathom wanting to put on his costume and plaster on a smile and do magic tricks in the wake of what he’d just learned.

Louis looked back at Harry and crossed his arms. “Nothing _has_ changed. I’m still the same person with the same plans and ambitions I had before. That all doesn’t go away just because my… circumstances are different.” Alright, maybe he was being a little bitchy and defensive, but he couldn’t help it – he didn’t want to be made out to feel guilty for continuing to want the things he’d always wanted, the things he’d worked so hard for.

Although Louis’ flippant attitude toward the pregnancy did sting a bit, mostly Harry was just concerned. Maybe Louis was in denial. Or had already decided what he wanted to do. Maybe he blamed Harry for the whole situation and was too angry to talk about anything. Or maybe Louis truly was just exceptional at compartmentalizing and had boxed up the life-altering news to be opened back up at a later time.

He wasn’t sure which option was preferable.

“At least let me drive you there?” Harry pleaded.

Louis had enough sense to be contrite over his snappy attitude. “Alright. And, ehm… thanks.”

Louis was a good assistant. He wasn’t particularly passionate about the work they did at the financial investment firm, but a lifetime of coordinating half a dozen schedules for his family had made him incredibly organized, and a good number of years in customer service had taught him how to demonstrate patience and pleasantness in the midst of conflict.

It suited him; and, more importantly, it paid well.

It was a good thing he’d gotten a proper rest the night before, because his boss pulled him into the conference room to take notes for a mind-numbing all-day meeting. With the exception of a few junior level execs, everyone in there were middle-age white men wearing nearly identical overly expensive suits and it took all of Louis’ mental capacity to keep straight who was saying what.

By the time they were supposed to break for lunch, Louis’ head was starting to get a little fuzzy, but it was decided that there was too much left to discuss and they would have food brought in. They decided on Italian, which sounded safe enough – Louis like Italian and didn’t remember anything being particularly spicy or odiferous.

Unfortunately, his newly enhance sense of smell begged to differ. The bags in the center of the table hadn’t even been opened yet, but Louis could already pick up hints of garlic and basil and olives and pepperoni. He tried to focus on capturing the still ongoing conversation, but as soon as the containers were fully open, it was like the scent-equivalent of being waterboarded. 

Louis’ stomach lurched violently and he bolted, only making it as far as the trashcan by his desk before heaving violently. He was temporarily relieved of the urgency of sickness, but the queasiness remained and he flopped down into his chair. He needed a minute, but he’d made a mess of things and certainly didn’t want to leave anyone else to happen upon the bits of regurgitated toast in his bin.

Shortly after he’d rinsed out his waste bucket and returned to his chair, his boss came out of the room and hovered over him. “You’re comin’ back in, Tomlinson?” The way he phrased it made it sound more like a firm suggestion than a question.

Louis desperately wanted to say yes, but the remains of lunch still wafted off Mr. Anderson and he was certain that the room still reeked of Italian. “Can, ehm… would you mind asking Sam to finish it out for me?”

Mr. Anderson’s eyes flicked to the other assistant’s desk across the room, which was currently buried under masses of unfiled folders and no less than three separate fidget spinners. “I barely trust that kid to staple my papers.”

Louis held back an eye roll – Sam had many skills, but had a hard time exhibiting them here because math and numbers happened not to be one of them. “He’s a people person. And smart. Whatever their best offer is, he’ll get another 10% knocked off, trust me.” 

It wasn’t like Louis to pawn off his work onto someone else – he _hated_ asking for help, even back when he first started and no one even expected him to know anything – and his boss was genuinely concerned. “Is everything alright?”

Well, that was a loaded question.

Louis took a centering breath and faked a smile. “Of course. I just have a lot of phone calls to make this afternoon and thought it would be less disruptive to not have to keep running in and out of the meeting.” 

Mr. Anderson highly suspected that Louis was bullshitting him, but he’d always been an exemplary employee – never complaining about being given the shit tasks and always looking to improve his performance – and so decided to let it slide. “Sam!” he called, beckoning the young man to his side, “you’re with me.”

Louis did get some work done the rest of the afternoon, but mostly he spent his time wallowing. He tried to imagine what he would say to Harry that night, but he honestly didn’t know. He had hoped that somehow the right answer about what to do would magically come to him during the day. That some divisive thought or event would trigger a decision that would bring him peace.

But there was no right or wrong here. No good or bad. Just a sea of gray and the knowledge that no matter what he chose to do, someone was going to get hurt.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Louis said preemptively when Harry picked him up from work.

Harry didn’t know whether he was referring to his day at work or the child they’d created together, and reached over the center console to wrap his hand around Louis’. “Did something happen?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a superhuman fucking nose and the rest of my body is none too happy about it,” he said, taking his hand out of Harry’s grasp so he could tuck his arms across his chest. “Who knew garlic bread could be so revolting.”

“You felt sick?”

“Feel,” Louis corrected. “Presently. All the fucking time.” Alright, maybe it wasn’t _all_ the time, but on some days it certainly felt that way. “And I know you want to talk about this whole thing, about what we’re gonna do, but I don’t know, okay? I don’t know what to do, but I’m upset and I don’t feel good and I really don’t think I should be making any life-altering decisions right now.”

Harry released a breath that would have been a sigh if it had gone through his mouth. “Okay.”

Well, that felt way too easy. “Okay?”

“Okay. We don’t have to talk about it now. We can wait until you’re ready.”

Damn Harry and his overly considerate and empathetic nature. Louis almost wished that he had locked him in the car and demanded they talk about it because… well, Louis wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready.

But then Louis noticed they had turned off the route that would take them back to his house. “Where are we going?”

“You said you had to pick up groceries, no?”

“Shit, you’re right.” Did Harry remember everything Louis had ever said to him? “Can you name all the carpal bones of the wrist too?” he asked, testing his theory with information from the first night they’d met.

“What?” Harry asked with a laugh. “Should I be able to?”

“Never mind,” Louis mumbled. To be fair, Louis couldn’t still remember either. He could only recall the stupid mnemonic that was supposed to help him remember the _actual_ useful information.

When they pulled into a parking spot, Harry left the car running as he pivoted to face Louis. “Do you want to give me a list or go in together?”

“Why would I give you a list?”

Harry’s brows furrowed. “Didn’t you just say the smell of food made you sick? This is a store literally lined wall-to-wall with food, some of which even I find a bit off-putting, so I assumed- I just thought it would be easier—“

Louis cut him off with a kiss that surprised them both.

“What was that for?” Harry asked with a confused but contented smile when Louis sat back in his seat.

“Hormones?” Louis suggested doubtfully – Harry wasn’t buying it. “I dunno. I guess it’s just—you, like, do this thing where you’re there and you listen and just… meet these needs that I didn’t even know I had.” He rolled his head to the side to see Harry pulling at his bottom lip. It was a nervous gesture, and Louis felt the slightest bit better thinking that maybe Harry was just fumbling around blindly trying to do his best too. Harry’s best was much better than his own, Louis concluded. “Thank you.”

***

Louis told himself that they would talk about it the next day. He had psyched himself up in the morning, but then he felt nauseous during his entire shift at the diner. He didn’t eat for fear of it unexpectedly coming back up again on an unsuspecting customer, but then when he went to pick up the twins from daycare afterward he became lightheaded and nearly passed out. Luckily, the place was well-stocked with snacks and juice cartons, but when he got home he once again he deemed himself unfit to think objectively about what to do about the pregnancy.

Harry wasn’t so sure they should really be thinking objectively at all, but was true to his word to wait until Louis brought up the subject on his own.

A full week went by, and Louis always found an excuse not to think about the decision he had to make. He’d had terrible heartburn that kept him up all night and he ended up sleeping through his alarm. Or he’d cried during an argument with a coworker who accused him of emotionally manipulating her to get his way. Or he’d had to pee so often than he couldn’t even sit through an entire class and was missing critical notes that caused him to barely pass an exam.

He kept waiting for a day where something didn’t happen that made him resent being pregnant and interrupting his daily life, but maybe he was just going to have to accept that this was it. This would be his new reality if he chose to continue trying to maintain his crazy lifestyle while also growing another human.

Harry had taken to sleeping over at his house most nights – and if Louis’ family had any questions as to why, they kept it to themselves – but never pressured him about their situation. And even though it was exactly what Louis had asked for, it was starting to make him feel isolated. Like he had to be the one to make and bear the weight of this decision all by himself. And after a particularly bad day – after a particularly bad week – he was finally ready to talk.

Well, to pick a fight.

“What do you think I should do?” Louis asked, throwing his hands up in the air in what felt like an overly dramatic fashion compared to Harry’s steady, calm demeanor.

“It’s your decision,” Harry said for what felt to both of them like the thousandth time.

Louis knew he was trying to be supportive, but again he was struck with desolation. “Stop saying that. It’s not my decision, it’s _our_ decision. You helped make this thing, you have to help decide what to do with it.”

Harry walked over and wrapped a hand around Louis’ waist, tracing the crest of his hip bone with his thumb. “I’m not denying my part in all this, I’m just… it’s your body. You already have so many responsibilities with family and school and work and everything. And it’s not like I wouldn’t be in this with you, but I can’t honestly claim that this pregnancy would change my life anywhere near as drastically as it would yours. And because of that, our thoughts on the matter might be different. I just… want you to be free to feel however you’re feeling.”

Louis frowned and kicked at the carpet because… well, because that was pretty damn good reasoning. Unfortunately, Louis was still in a bad mood and not quite done being petulant yet. “Could at least give your opinion on the matter,” he muttered, and now it was Harry’s turn to be exasperated.

“You don’t really want my opinion.”

“Yes I do. I just said—“

“You said it was our decision, but every time I’ve brought up the possibility of you actually having this baby, you start to list all the reasons you can’t or shouldn’t or won’t.”

“I didn’t—“ Louis started. 

But he did. 

He remembered it now, Harry’s offhand suggestions over the past several days. The offer to start looking for a more stable and profitable job – which Louis dismissed because he’d be damned if he let either of them give up on their dreams because of this. The suggestion to talk to their families about helping out with babysitting – which Louis brushed off because as an adult still living at home he already felt like too much of a burden. The proposal to get a place together that was closer to school and work to make it an easier commute – which Louis rejected because he’d feel like he was abandoning his family and he probably couldn’t afford it anyway and maybe he was just the slightest bit terrified at the level of commitment Harry was already willing to put forth while Louis still didn’t have time to put any into a real relationship. 

“It is, though. Our decision,” Louis reiterated, as if that could tear down all the walls he’d inadvertently built to keep out Harry’s influence. “Please? I can’t- I don’t want to have to decide this alone.”

Harry sighed and any anger or resentment that had been stirred up fizzled out as he wrapped Louis in his arms. “You’re not alone.” He kissed the crown of Louis’ head and hugged him closer. “Never alone. But I think you already know what you want – you just want me to want the same thing.”

Louis wasn’t sure how Harry was so sure, because that night – after having cooked dinner and checking homework and putting all the kids to bed and cleaning up and packing lunches for the next day – all Louis was sure he wanted to was go to bed and sleep for the next three days or so.

Of course, the universe couldn’t even grant him that much.

He had tossed and turned for about two hours before his body staged a full-scale revolt. Although he barely felt like he had the energy to stand, Louis managed to stumble into the hall bathroom and fall to his knees over the toilet, clutching the sides with trembling hands as he retched over and over and over again.

At some point the involuntary tears that had gathered in his eyes from the coughing turned into full-on sobbing and soon he was choking and gasping and panicking because he couldn’t pull enough air into his lungs and he didn’t remember Harry following him in there but soon a pair of arms were around him and there was gentle humming and rhythmic rocking and then miraculously he was able to control his breathing again.

When Louis finally took one deep breath in, held it for a few seconds, and then released it, he practically deflated in Harry’s arms. He was stressed out and exhausted and felt like shit and he just couldn’t take it anymore.

“I don’t wanna be pregnant anymore,” he whispered against Harry’s shoulder without looking up.

On some level, Harry always knew that this was what Louis would decide to do – what he really wanted. But that didn’t stop his chest from hurting or his eyes from watering as he pulled Louis tighter against him and kissed the top of his head. It wasn’t what he was hoping for, but he was pretty sure he’d find a way to give Louis the moon if he’d asked for it.

“Okay,” he said, confirming with himself as much as with Louis. “We can schedule the appointment in the morning.”

Louis traced his fingers around the designs in Harry’s shirt. “Do you regret it?”

“Regret what?”

Louis shrugged. Letting him decide what to do about the baby? Sleeping together? Ever having met in the first place? “Any of it.”

Harry was quiet for a long moment, thinking through his answer deeply and thoroughly. “I regret that we created a child whose parents weren’t ready for it. I regret the hard choices that have to be made because of that – because either choice would have been hard. And I regret the physical and emotional toll that choice is taking on you, on us.” He stilled Louis’ hand then by grabbing it and placing flat on his chest over his heart. “But Louis, I can’t honestly bring myself to regret being with you. Of knowing how my name sounds as ecstasy pulls it from your lips. Of knowing how it feels to wake up with your body wrapped around mine. The truth is, I could never regret a single moment I get to spend with you.”

No one had ever said things like that to Louis before, and his sleep-deprived brain didn’t quite know how to process it. Part of him was comforted in knowing that Harry would be okay with this decision because he really cared about what Louis wanted. But another part of him really cared about what Harry wanted too, and that—well, he didn’t know what to do with that information.

When they finished getting Louis all cleaned up, Harry led them back to the bedroom. It should have been a relief, having finally made a decision, but Louis was more restless than ever.

Dan was working the overnight shift, which contributed to Louis’ over-tiredness, but that meant the master bedroom was currently unoccupied. He tiptoed his way down the hall and was immediately comforted by the traces of his mum still lingering in the room. The smell of her perfume that Dan still sprayed in the air every few days. The half-written to-do list still on the nightstand – things that had seemed so important at the time that quickly fell away when they were forced to focus on what really mattered. Even the mirror over the dresser where he could sometimes see her eyes staring back at him.

Again he wished nothing more than for her to be there. He knew what she’d say if she was, though, because there was nothing more important and rewarding to her than her children.

But she wasn’t there, and that was the whole goddamn point.

Louis curled on top of the covers for a while, soaking up the reminders of her presence while sleep continued to elude him. He didn’t know how long he laid there, but eventually he heard a pair of shuffling feet that stopped at the foot of the bed.

“What are you doing here, little one?” Louis asked, genuinely surprised that Ernie had come to join him.

“Don’t feel good. Can’t sleep,” he pouted, making grabby hands for his big brother.

Louis sighed, but… well, he could relate.

He scooped Ernie up in his arms and took him back into the younger twins’ shared room, situating himself in the rocker with him in his lap. Of course Doris sensed that she was missing out on something and quickly woke up and climbed up into the other corner of the chair.

Louis rocked the three of them smoothly, trailing his fingers lightly down each of their backs until they snuggled closed and eventually their eyes drifted closed and their little arms dropped to their sides. As he gazed down at their faces – so innocent and cherubic in sleep – his mind drifted back to his mum. Would she have still chosen to have them if she’d known that she’d have so little time with them? That she’d never get to see them off to school or have their first drink or fall in love?

He knew she would. She would because she knew that Dan and Louis and his sisters would all be there for them no matter what; because their family wouldn’t have been complete without them. And as he finally, _finally_ drifted off to sleep, Louis began to wonder if there was another family out there that would feel incomplete until it included a child – and that maybe the reason this baby didn’t seem to be fitting into Louis’ life was because it was actually the missing piece in someone else’s.

***

During the night Harry had tried to stay still for Louis’ sake, but hadn’t been able to sleep much and ended up waking up before dawn. And he woke up alone.

There were no coughing sounds coming from the bathroom, but the door to the twins’ room was open a crack and he poked his head in. Louis was passed out on the chair with two small bodies curled against him and Harry’s heart filled and then drained so quickly that he was left feeling more empty than ever.

So before he could go and do something stupid like get down on his knees and ask – beg – Louis to build a future with him, Harry decided to make himself useful in the present. He busied himself in the kitchen, making breakfast for the whole family and making sure everyone was up and about around the time he’d remembered Louis doing so a few days earlier.

When Louis finally awoke, he got the twins dressed and steeled himself for a morning of chaos. But when he went downstairs to find everyone dressed and fed and ready to go, he was probably more grateful than he’d ever been for everything. Lottie gave him a weird look when he began tearing up and strongly implied that he may be in the midst of a mental breakdown and therefore she would take charge of getting everyone to school.

Once they were alone, there was a heavy silence as Harry cleaned up – he’d insisted that Louis sit down and rest after such a rough night, and even though the dark circles under Harry’s eyes suggested his was not much better, Louis obliged. He didn’t know how best to voice the decision he’d come to belatedly, but apparently his mouth had decided on blunt honesty.

“I’m gonna have this baby.”

Harry paused, but if he was surprised by the announcement, he didn’t show it.

“I’m gonna have it, but I don’t want to keep it.” Louis slid out of his seat and looked up into Harry’s eyes – he could finally face him with this choice – begging him to understand. “Mum was just a kid herself when I was born, but she kept me because she wanted to be a mum more than anything.” Although it went unsaid, the inference was there that that was not true for Louis. “I want this baby to be wanted like that.” Harry still didn’t speak and Louis clarified, “I want to give it up for adoption.” Upon still further silence, Louis asked, “Is that- are you okay with that?”

It was probably definitely just Louis’ imagination, but he swore he saw pain and heartbreak on Harry’s face – even more than when he told him he wanted to end the pregnancy – and it made his eyes water because hormones and he had to turn away probably definitely not because he might irrationally change his mind if Harry kept looking at him like that.

But no, it was definitely there, that look, and Louis felt awful for being the one to put it there. “If you don’t—you don’t have to be involved. Or, like, around even if… if you can’t- if it’s too much.”

Harry was momentarily shaken out of his personal agony by the shock of Louis’ suggestion. “Are you trying to get rid of me?” He was half-joking, but actually expected a response. When Louis didn’t give him one, he turned more serious and asked him, “Is this really what you want?”

Louis took half a second too long to respond, but eventually confirmed that, “Yes. I think- I think this is best for everyone.” 

That wasn’t what he’d asked. “Louis—“

“But if it’s too weird or complicated or whatever, I understand,” Louis interrupted. “I can do this on my own and you can pretend like we never even met.”

Harry knew that Louis was just trying to protect himself from potential rejection, but _fuck_ if it didn’t hurt like hell that he thought what they had could be so easily dismissed and forgotten. But Louis wasn’t telling Harry to go away, he was giving him an out – one that Harry had never asked for and certainly never wanted.

“I care about you, Lou.” There was a catch in his voice and Harry cleared his throat. “And if you want to follow through with this pregnancy, I want to be there for you through it.” It was going to be hard on both of them, but they’d gotten into this together. “If that’s what you want?”

Louis nodded, “I would like that,” and sought out the safety of Harry’s arms – honestly, he wasn’t sure he would have actually been able to get through the physical and emotional toll without his support.

Harry took a deep breath and savored the feeling of Louis in his arms, using that feeling to blanket the fissures of unease that were threatening to crack open his heart. It wasn’t the first time he was tempted to ask Louis for more than he wanted to give, but maybe this time Louis was right. Maybe they could find happiness with each other and that would be enough.

“So, does this mean we’re in a real relationship now?”

The question earned a wet snort and a playful shove from Louis, and Harry was painfully aware that he never actually gave an answer.


	9. Showing

Their first doctor’s appointment together wasn’t a very exciting one. They took Louis’ height and weight and blood and measurements and asked how he was feeling. During any previous week, his answer would have been ‘like shit’, but it was like doctor’s knew that, which was why they tended to schedule the next visit for after the first trimester plagues subsided.

So when they asked him this time, he could honestly say, “Better.”

“Well, everything is looking great, Louis,” the nurse said cheerily. “Seen your mum in here more than a few times – I can’t believe Jo’s baby is having a baby.” She didn’t seem to notice Louis’ discomfort; he didn’t have the heart to tell her about the adoption plan, but began thinking maybe they should start looking for a new practice where people didn’t know his family so well. “So as long as nothing changes, we’ll see you in about a month.”

“Will you do a scan then?” Harry asked with forced nonchalance. He hadn’t really known what to expect at an OB/GYN appointment, and was a little disappointed that they didn’t get to see anything.

“Maybe. Depends on the timing. You’ll be almost half-baked by then, so we could probably swing it if you really wanted.”

“I think that would be nice,” Harry answered for himself before deferring to Louis. “If- I mean, if you want to, of course.”

Louis wasn’t exactly anxious to be thrown into an emotional tizzy again, but he knew they’d have to do it eventually. God, his pregnancy would be half over by then – it was all happening so fast… but somehow also not fast enough. “Ehm, yeah I guess.”

“Great. Well, happy holidays to you both – I’ll see you next year!” she said with a wink.

Louis held in an eye roll at the joke that he’d already heard a dozen times since December started, but Harry laughed and it actually sounded genuine. “You really do have the worst sense of humor,” Louis scolded him.

“You make me laugh all the time, so who are you really insulting here?” Harry asked, ruffling Louis’ hair like a child.

Louis ducked and scowled appropriately. “You know you don’t have to come to every appointment. Most of ‘em are gonna be as boring as this one.”

“You were only bored because you tuned her out when she started telling you the same thing I always do – you need to take better care of yourself. Get more sleep, eat more—“ 

Louis cut him off with an exaggerated snore. “Look, I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, and I don’t get takeaway every night. I think I’m doin’ alright.”

“Fine. But if we come back in a few weeks and see that this kid’s grown two heads, that’s all on you.” Harry saw Louis visibly tense and reconsidered the prudence of making light of something potentially going wrong. He grabbed Louis’ hand and squeezed, bending over so he could be at eye level. “Hey, I’m sorry. You’re doing everything right and I’m so proud of you.”

It took Louis a minute to realize Harry thought he was upset by his teasing. While he didn’t particularly like being corrected by someone who had much less experience with this whole process, mostly Louis was just wary of again having to come face-to-face with the child he intended to give up.

But that was still weeks away. Neither of them had had much time to process their decision, and by then he’d have been able to sort through his heightened emotions and see this for what it was – another temporary hardship to be surmounted in order to reach his goals.

It would build character… or some shit like that.

“I know, love,” Louis assured him, settling himself into the crook of Harry’s neck. “And if this baby has two heads, it will be because one couldn’t fit the giant head it inherited from you after too many nights of too many girls throwing their panties at you on stage.”

***

Alright, so maybe Louis spent the next couple weeks ignoring his situation rather than processing it. He was still tired a lot and his sense of smell was still disgustingly acute, but for the most part it was pretty easy pretend that everything was normal.

Well, for him anyway.

Harry, it seemed, decided to overcompensate for his bystander role by being overly invested in Louis’ midsection. Every time he’d see him, Harry would ask how the baby was feeling or pull out a tape measure to see if his belly had grown or provide little nuggets of information he’d picked up from books and the internet. Finally Louis snapped and yelled at him about how he _didn’t want to know_ what size fruit was currently taking up space in his womb. He hated the kicked-puppy look it had put on Harry’s face, but he did stop bringing it up after that.

It wasn’t that Louis was in denial, he just had other things to worry about. Like arranging all his classes for the spring semester during the first three days of the week so he’d have a little more flexibility for his working hours. Or preparing for and executing his one-on-one interview with Dr. Blake after having been selected as one of the finalists for the internship. Or purposefully scheduling himself to work over his birthday and Christmas and New Year’s because he’d felt guilty celebrating anything ever since his mum passed and it provided an easy excuse.

When Harry finally managed to pin him down at work the first week of January, he was actually quite cross about belatedly discovering that he’d missed Louis’ birthday. As both punishment and present, Harry followed him around everywhere with his guitar for about a week, literally singing his praises like a traveling bard to a mid-century knight.

During one of these personal concerts in early January, Louis pleaded for Harry to take a break from annoying customers during the dinner rush at the diner – if for nothing else than the sake of his tips. He only conceded because he felt bad for taking up a table without ordering anything, but Louis still heard the occasional pluck of a string as Harry serenaded Mary in the back.

Louis had thought his night would go a little smoother by not having to try and explain the eccentricities of a romantic musician, but apparently he was destined to be harassed in one form or another. One of his tables had obviously spent a little time at the bar across the street before coming in, and though Louis had put on his most convincingly cordial attitude, they continued making rude comments, which alternated between being lewd and cruel. Louis wasn’t sure what their end goal was – did they want him to fuck them or punch them?

Definitely the latter, he decided, when one of them nodded toward his expanding waist and suggested that he’d been sampling a little too much of the product. 

It wasn’t a big deal, really. Or it shouldn’t have been. Louis had dealt with much worse during his years of customer service and was no stranger to people feeling the need to comment on his curvy figure, but for some reason this particular offense struck a nerve.

Under normal circumstances, Louis could have brushed off the anger and embarrassment. But he hadn’t had complete control over his emotions for months, and instead of pouring hot coffee in their laps like he wanted, he gave them a tight-lipped smile and high-tailed it back to the kitchen.

Where he promptly burst into tears.

Which then made him even more angry and embarrassed and made the uncontrollable sobbing even worse.

Harry must have had some sort of sixth sense when it came to finding Louis during moments of vulnerability, because it wasn’t long before his arms were around him and he was asking him what was wrong and what he could do to help.

“It’s stupid,” Louis pouted, even as his lip still trembled.

“Humor me.”

“Just some customers being rude.” He nodded an apology to the poor chef whose space he was crowding and had no idea what to do with him. “Happens all the time.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s stupid.”

Louis sniffled – he really didn’t want to repeat it out loud.

“Please? I promise I won’t perform a song about it.”

Louis tried to avoid eye contact, but he could still feel Harry’s gaze on him. “They said I was fat,” he finally mumbled. Well, they implied it, but… semantics.

“You’re—“

“And they’re right,” Louis whined – which, he concluded, was probably why it had gotten to him. “Fuck, none of my pants button anymore and even my biggest t-shirts are starting to pull at the bottom.” Louis frowned down at himself and molded his hand around the growing curve of his stomach. At least it was winter and most of the time he could hide it under baggy jumpers.

Harry was going to reiterate that Louis’ body was only changing because it was doing something incredible, but he knew that, and at this moment the reminder probably wouldn’t do much to placate him. “Want me to go beat the shit out of them?” Harry offered instead.

“There’s three of them.”

“I could use my guitar? She’s usually a lover, not a fighter, but we could make an exception in this case.”

Louis snuggled closer into Harry’s arms, wiping the moisture from his cheeks onto Harry’s shirt as he considered the option. “I think if you move I’ll probably just dissolve into a blubbering puddle on the floor, which would make it very difficult to deliver table three’s onion rings that are about to come out of the fryer.”

Harry chuckled, but was also maybe a little smug about being this pillar of support in Louis’ life. “You know, I actually think it’s a good thing your clothes won’t fit. You’re beautiful and sexy and now I guess I’ll get to see you walk around naked all the time.”

Louis scoffed and smacked him lightly on the chest – although the idea made his cheeks burn, the fact that Harry would even suggest that he still found Louis attractive in this state did make him feel the slightest bit better. “Just because you’re so damn comfortable walking around without clothes all the time doesn’t mean everyone else is.”

Harry shrugged – Louis had never seemed to mind his penchant for nudity, why wouldn’t Harry feel the same? “Fine. If you insist on wearing clothes, I could take you shopping for some of those sexy maternity pants – the ones that hug _all_ your curves.”

Alright, now Louis was calling bullshit. “You can’t possibly find those sexy.” Harry’s lopsided smirk suggested otherwise. “They have elastic around the middle!”

“Well, no clothes are sexy on their own.” They were already touching, but somehow Harry managed to get even closer. “And I’m fairly certain you can make _any_ thing sexy.”

Louis was about to protest once again, but then he remembered how hot Harry looked even in his clown makeup and sparkly suits and… alright, maybe he had a point.

***

“Do you want to know what you’re having?” the lab tech asked as she led Harry and Louis back to the exam room.

Louis’ brain short-circuited for a second and he very nearly tripped over his own feet. A pair of hands shot out to steady him, and he looked up at Harry with a grateful smile. “Uh, what we’re having?” he reiterated, trying to comprehend the question.

“Yeah, like do you want to know the sex? Boy or girl,” she added when the expectant parents continued to stare at her blankly.

Well, shit. They’d had a month to prepare for this, but since Louis had basically banned Harry from talking about the baby for the last few weeks, they really hadn’t discussed how they wanted this appointment to go. Louis knew what he wanted – what would be easier – and because Harry looked to him to answer, he was relieved to be able to say, “No.”

“Ah, keeping it a surprise. Building the suspense. Don’t see much of that nowadays. Everyone wants to know everything right away now. I blame the internet.”

The technician continued to babble away while Louis whispered to Harry, “Is that okay, if we don’t? I mean, I just think it’ll be better in the long run. To not know.”

“What, are you gonna keep your eyes closed in the delivery room too?” He hadn’t meant the question to hold such bitterness, but did Louis really think withholding this one bit of information would lessen the pain of separation?

“I—no. I don’t know. I haven’t… I don’t know.”

Louis was saved from having to give a coherent answer when they were ushered into a room to begin the battery of tests that accompanied this particular milestone.

When they finally got to what their technician referred to as ‘the fun part’, Harry was a bundle of unreleased energy. His fingers tapped wildly against his thigh in what would have probably made a pretty epic classic rock electric guitar solo, untempered in the slightest by Louis’ adjacent melancholy.

The last time Louis saw what was growing inside him, it was just an indistinct little bean. What was on the screen now was unmistakably a baby. And the longer he looked, the harder it became for him to swallow, so instead he chose to focus on Harry’s face. 

It was almost harder to bear.

Harry was practically glowing. Even his nose was all scrunched up in genuine joy and delight. At least it was… until he glanced at Louis’ pained expression, at which point he composed it into something more neutral and maybe a little sad, and Louis hated to be the one depriving the world of such a beautiful thing as Harry’s smile.

As soon as he saw Louis screw his tortured eyes shut, immediately Harry regretted getting snippy with him before. Louis didn’t have to be doing any of this – telling him about the baby, keeping it, letting him be a part of the pregnancy. Like always, he was just trying to take care of everyone the best he could, and Harry had chastised him for it.

“We don’t have to find out the sex,” Harry whispered, leaning down to kiss away a tear that Louis hadn’t realized had escaped down his cheek. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”

Louis honestly didn’t feel worthy of being thanked for anything, but took Harry’s offered hand and squeezed tightly. “I’m glad you’re here.”

They both spent the rest of the appointment trying to maintain a neutrality about the whole thing, each never wanting to appear too happy or too sad for the sake of the other. Both, at least, could agree to being relieved when the doctor came in with the results of all the tests and announced that the baby’s development and all the screenings appeared normal.

“Should we get ice cream?” Harry asked as they made their way back out to the car. “I feel like this is an occasion that calls for ice cream. Ooh, or some of that edible cookie dough from that place downtown. Or both! Get the cookie dough, then put the ice cream on top.”

“You know you’re not _actually_ supposed to eat twice as much when you’re pregnant, right?” Louis countered as he yanked the passenger door open. As soon as he sat down and pulled out his cell phone, he noticed that there were three voicemails left within the last ten minutes.

Harry waited to pull out of their parking spot until Louis was finished listening. “Everything good?”

Louis sighed. “Not really. Ernie is sick and needs to be picked up from daycare.”

“Okay?” That didn’t sound so bad.

“The day’s half over anyway,” Louis continued, “so it would make more sense just to pick up Doris too, but Dan’s at work and Lottie took the car to school and we were supposed to have the whole afternoon together to get ice cream and cookie dough and now we can’t get either.”

Louis sounded like he was on the verge of tears and Harry reached over to interlace their fingers. “What can I do?”

Louis closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, trying to let go of his disappointment at being robbed of a rare afternoon of freedom. “Just drop me off at mine, I guess. So I can pick up the van.”

“Alright, then what?”

“Then I’ll bring the twins home and try and get them to nap long enough that hopefully I’ll have time to get dinner started before the teenagers get home with whatever flavor of the week they happen to be dating at the moment that they try to pass off as ‘study partners’.”

Harry didn’t hear his assignment in there anywhere. “And what do I do?”

Louis shrugged. “I dunno – brood? Stare dramatically out a rain-streaked window? Whatever you moody artist types usually do when I’m not around.”

“First of all, I do not brood.” Well, not usually. “And second of all, don’t you want my help? I don’t mind helping.” His afternoon schedule had been cleared as well, and at least this way he’d still be able to spend it with Louis.

As much as Louis desperately wanted to take him up on the offer, he also didn’t want to take advantage of Harry’s innate kindness. “You should go do something fun.”

“Your house is fun, and I’m in need of another manicure anyway.” Louis looked like he was about to protest again, so Harry continued. “How about this. I drop you off so you can retrieve Ernie and Doris while I go pick up our ice cream and cookie dough. I’ll meet you back at the house to play referee while you cook, and then once they’re fed and in bed, we can cuddle up on the couch and enjoy our spoils.”

There wasn’t an ounce of reservation in the suggestion, and again Louis wondered just what he’d done to earn Harry’s affections. “I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay you for everything you do for me.”

He sounded a little too serious, and Harry tried to lighten the mood. “It’s on the house, but we do accept tips in the form of sexual favors.”

It was a joke, but honestly… Louis was more than a little turned on. Like, all the time lately. It would be tight, but he suspected he was still small and maneuverable enough to climb over the center console and straddle Harry’s legs.

So he did.

“What’re you—“

“Would you like to cash in you chips now, Mr. Styles?” he asked, running his hands down Harry’s chest and tugging playfully at the waistband of his jeans.

“What, here? Now?”

“You’re cute when you’re flustered,” Louis said as he ran his hands slowly along Harry’s inner thighs, causing him to twitch wildly in response. “You know, this would be easier if you leaned your seat back.”

Harry’s eyes sparkled mischievously – he was beginning to like these mood swings. “I like a challenge.”

Harry surged up to meet Louis in a fiery kiss while Louis ground his hips against Harry’s lap and it wasn’t long before they both wanted – _needed_ – more.

And for the first time, Louis was actually grateful for those damn stretchy maternity pants.

***

Their moment of passion in the car was only the first of many unexpected and crazy events of the night. Trying to appease both one sick, needy kid and one wild, energetic one was not easy – Louis had to start dinner over twice for having left something on the stove too long while helping Harry wrangle them. Still, they got Ernie’s fever down and got some fruit and crackers in Doris and somehow convinced them both to stay in their room for an hour, even if neither of them actually slept.

Then all the girls got home from school and Harry supervised while they studied with some ‘friends’ – ensuring that their doors always remained open and peeking in every now and then. Dan ended up having to work late, which meant that Louis was also responsible for getting everyone to bed. He made Daisy and Phoebe clean up and do the dishes – they had mouthed off to him during dinner, and he used that as an excuse to take one more chore off his plate – and he and Harry gave baths to the younger twins while Lottie and Fizz drove the non-Tomlinsons back to their respective houses.

The night was as streamlined as Louis could have made it, but somehow Harry and Louis were still the last to the finish line. Even Lottie’s light was off by the time they snuck out of the twins’ bedroom and tiptoed down the stairs.

They listened to the monitor for a few minutes, waiting to see if any of the soft whines and restless rustling would turn into a needy cry. But once Doris and Ernie finally stilled, Harry and Louis were finally able to sit down. Well, it was more like they flopped down onto the couch out of exhaustion, and Harry pulled Louis into his lap.

It was quiet for several contented moments before Harry’s hand naturally found its way to Louis’ stomach and he whispered, “We could do this.” The confession was soft – vulnerable and pleading – and nearly broke Louis’ heart. “We could do it, Lou. You and me. Together.” They had proven that tonight.

Louis sighed and tried to pretend he hadn’t thought the same thing a thousand times already. But it was never a question about whether they _could_ do it, but rather whether they should. “Close your eyes,” he instructed.

“Why?”

“Because I’m doing a thing. Just… please?”

Harry obliged. “Alright, now what? If I knew you wanted to get kinky, I would’ve brought the handcuffs from my closet.”

“That’s not—wait, what?” Louis was momentarily distracted trying to determine whether Harry was serious or not. “Just be quiet for a minute, you’re ruining it.”

“Ruining what?”

“Never mind. It’s stupid,” Louis sighed, rolling out of Harry’s grasp and onto his own couch cushion.

Harry’s eyes popped open and he pouted, reaching out for at least Louis’ hand. “Hey, come back. I’m sorry, I didn’t- I’m sorry. I’ll—“ he closed his eyes, “see? Can’t see a thing.” As adorable as Harry was being, Louis didn’t move. “And definitely not imagining you performing a striptease right in front of me while I remain torturously unaware.”

“Ugh, _stop_!” Harry’s smirk only widened, and Louis took up his previous position – at least then his imagination about what Louis could possibly be doing was limited. “I want you to think about music.”

“Can’t I just finish—“

“Please, Haz?” Once Harry’s face settled into a slightly less salacious grin, Louis continued. “Alright, so imagine what it would be like to get everything you ever wanted as a musician. What label you want to sign with, what countries you want to tour in, what stadiums you want to sell out. If you could lay out the perfect future for yourself where all you dreams of being a famous rock star came true, what would it look like?”

Harry’s eyes opened again, but this time they were resigned. “I know what you’re doing, and maybe it would have even worked a year ago. But things are different now – why can’t my perfect future include you and the baby?”

Now it was Louis’ turn to turn a bit melancholy. Harry had lived a charmed life so far – he’d had few responsibilities and things just tended to work out for him. But Louis had had to work and sacrifice for every damn thing in his life and he wasn’t sure Harry truly understood what they’d both have to give up to even try to make this work. 

“What happens when you get no sleep for weeks on end and have no time or energy left to write new songs? Or when a record producer is supposed to come to one of your shows and give you your big break but you have to cancel because your child is sick? What about when you’re touring or promoting and you have to miss football games and graduations?”

Harry didn’t like what he was implying, and maybe he was just a little tired and cranky, but he couldn’t help being a little defensive. “I shouldn’t have to choose between music and family.”

“You shouldn’t, but you do.” Louis had already made that choice, but apparently Harry was still clinging to the fantasy of being able to have everything just because he wanted it. “And we’re not family. We’re not even in a relationship.”

“We’re having a baby together,” he pointed out, exasperated, but Louis was already shaking his head.

“We both know firsthand that just because two people are having a baby together does not mean that automatically makes them a family.” Both their absent biological father were proof of that.

“We could be a family if we tried.” If only Louis would try. “And you’d do anything for family.” 

Louis pulled back incredulously. “That’s exactly the problem! I would give up everything, _everything_ for them, and that’s exactly what you’re asking. You’re asking me to give up everything. Everything both of us have always dreamed of for something neither of us are sure we even want.”

Harry knew Louis didn’t want this, but that didn’t mean he felt the same. “I—“

“Look, I know today was hard. Because of the appointment.” Louis scooted far enough away so that they were fully on separate cushions. “There were a lot of emotions, and it’s only going to get harder as time goes on. So if… if it’s too hard for you, it’s okay. If you need space, I told you I could take care of this myself.”

Harry stared at him, totally gobsmacked. After all this time, after countless assurances and every ounce of physical and emotional support he could muster, Harry was apparently still completely and totally expendable to him. “Fuck, Lou, I don’t want to leave! I’ve never wanted to leave. But I’m beginning to think you actually _want_ to do this on your own.” He stood up, starting toward the door but then turning around as a thought occurred to him. “Maybe you do, because that way it’s more believable when you pretend like this baby really _doesn’t_ affect anyone else.”

Louis had never really seen Harry get angry before, which should have been warning enough for him to stand down. But he’d accused Louis of only thinking of himself and that was the exact opposite of what he was trying to do. He wanted this baby to have the best life possible. He wanted Harry to fulfill his dreams. He wanted to cure cancer for fuck’s sake! How, _how_ was he being selfish?

“I’m sorry,” Louis said, rising to meet him, “but unless you’ve found a way to take over this pregnancy for me, it _does_ affect me way more than anyone else.” 

Harry’s jaw audibly clicked shut and he spoke through gritted teeth. “If you don’t want to listen to anything I have to say, why do you even want me here?” Then, his voice pitched dangerously low, “Or do you even want me here?”

Although morning sickness hadn’t plagued him for several weeks, Louis felt the bile stirring in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to tell Harry how much he needed him – how many times he’d given him the strength and encouragement just to get through the day, or made him laugh when all he wanted to do was cry, or brought him peace when literally everything in his life felt like it was spiraling out of control.

The thought of having Harry walk out on this made Louis physically ill, but guilting him into staying when all it was doing was hurting him would have made Louis as selfish as Harry apparently thought him to be.

So instead, Louis swallowed his own feelings and made the choice he thought would be best for both of them. And Harry probably wouldn’t understand this one either. “I think you should go, Harry.”

Louis watched numbly as he gathered his coat and his keys, quickly but quietly erasing every trace of his presence in the house before disappearing into the night.

Louis’ emotions had been so intense lately that he had expected to fall into an inconsolable mass onto the floor – it’s probably what he would have done if what he was feeling was simply upset or afraid or overwhelmed. Instead he felt… nothing.

Not the nothingness of indifference, but the nothingness of shock as your heart and mind shut down in an attempt to save you before a tidal wave of grief can obliterate every reason you had to speak or eat or get out of bed in the morning. It was the same feeling he’d gotten just after his mum died, and it wasn’t until that moment that he realized just how much Harry had become part of his life.

Well, the feeling may have been the same, but the situation was entirely different. Harry was gone, but he didn’t have to be gone forever.

Which meant that Louis still had the chance to make this right… hopefully before the tidal wave came crashing down on him.


	10. I Think Maybe I Love You

Okay, so maybe Louis spent the next few days eating his feelings a little bit. And apparently the patrons at the diner weren’t the only ones to notice his growing middle because, although the older twins didn’t explicitly say anything about it, they did give him a fair bit of side-eye when he went in for a second (and third) piece of chocolate cake.

He intended to just let them think whatever they wanted about his current physiological state, but then he opened the freezer only to find the half-eaten ice cream/cookie dough combo from the night Harry left. He promptly burst into tears and now that he was the rare center of attention the truth came tumbling out in one angry embarrassed stream of consciousness.

“You can quit staring, alright?” he sniffled once the offending dessert was out of sight in the bin. “Yes I am emotional and yes I am gaining weight because I’m pregnant and I’m putting the baby up for adoption and in about four months it will be like nothing ever happened so if anyone has any opinions on the matter they can just keep it to themselves.”

Despite the half-hearted warning at the end of his confession, Louis still braced himself for an eruption of chaotic reactions. He expected them to be mad at him for keeping this secret so long, or to make some snide remarks about the unlikelihood of someone actually having sex with him, or at the very least to have a thousand and one questions about the whole situation.

Instead, everyone was frozen in a moment of stunned silence. Then Lottie came forward and wrapped her arms around him, followed quickly by Dan and Fizzy. Daisy and Phoebe came next, and even Doris and Ernie got in on the action, even if they didn’t know why. The embrace had Louis toeing a fine line between feeling comforted and suffocated and it wasn’t long before he waved them away insisting that they go about their business ignoring him like they usually did.

Louis buried his nose in a textbook on the couch in an attempt to deflect any potential interactions, but he wasn’t bothered. In fact, the rest of the night was eerily quiet. No one fussed about doing chores or finishing homework or getting ready for bed. It was weird, and everyone acting like Louis’ announcement was no big deal somehow made it feel like that much more of a big deal.

Louis waited until everyone else had long gone upstairs before finally dragging himself up to his room. He really should have expected that someone would be lying in wait to talk to him, but the sight of Dan perched on the end of his bed still caused his heart rate to skyrocket.

“Didn’t think you’d get off that easy, did you?” he asked, looking nearly as nervous as Louis felt.

Louis shrugged and sat backwards straddling his desk chair, perhaps subconsciously hiding the topic of conversation from view. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“Are you okay? I mean, have you seen a doctor? Are you staying healthy?”

Louis rolled his eyes, more like a teenager being chastised for not eating their vegetables than attempting to hide an entire pregnancy from their family. “Yes, yes, doing all the right things, ticking off all the boxes.”

Dan was already nodding, having expected as much out of the overly-responsible eldest child. Well… mostly responsible, it seemed. “When did you find out?”

Louis spun once in his chair as a stall tactic, but he took the instant nausea accompanying the slow rotation as the universe’s way of telling him to fess up. “Couple months ago.”

“Louis—“

“I know,” Louis interrupted, tucking even more of himself behind the back of his chair, “but it’ll be over soon and then things will go right back to how they used to be.”

“Yeah, you said that earlier.” And he obviously didn’t believe it then either.

“See, this is why I didn’t want to tell everyone – I already know what I want and bringing other people into it just makes it all harder than it has to be.”

Dan looked like he wanted to say something more – perhaps to suggest that they were not the ‘other people’ Louis was truly concerned about – but thought better of it. Instead, he said, “I know we didn’t get along at first, you and me. Didn’t want me anywhere near your mum; didn’t think anyone could be good enough for her. I mean, I understood why – you’d been the only man in Jo’s life for so long, and it was so easy to not want to share her. And you were her whole world too.”

“Came ‘round eventually, though, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you eventually took pity on me, seeing as how she made me ask you if I could marry her before she ever let me take a knee.” A smile settled on his face – there was no hint of sadness in it, and Louis wondered how he was able keep it from shadowing his memories of her. “But that wasn’t the only thing I asked you that day.” He paused, but Louis didn’t seem to want to pull that thread. “Do you remember the question I asked you, even before I asked your mum to be my wife?”

Louis was slouched low enough now that only his eyes were still visible over the back of the chair and his words were muffled by the fabric. “You asked me to be your son.”

Dan’s head tilted slightly and he nodded. “Now I know you’re not a boy anymore, Louis, but you are still my son. We chose each other that day, and I will never stop choosing you, every day, for the rest of my life.” 

Louis was busy trying desperately not to burst into tears and so his face, perhaps, looked slightly more sour than it should have. “Don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, exactly.”

Dan got up and cupped his palm around Louis’ hunched shoulder. “It means that I love you, and I’m always here for you no matter what you decide to do.” 

Louis was familiar enough with this vague language to know that this was stepdad’s non-pushy way of saying he would support Louis even if he wanted to keep the baby. But if anything, he’d just provided the best evidence for Louis to follow through with his original plan. Dan’s name wasn’t on his birth certificate, but he had been more of a father to Louis and his siblings than the man who’d supplied the other half of Louis’ DNA – just like the adoptive parents would be to his child.

“Thank you, Dan. That’s—you’ve been a really good dad.”

Dan’s face softened, as if to say _you would be too_ , but he left the room without another word.

When he was alone again, Louis blew out a deep breath and rolled himself over and onto his bed. His head was hurting with the pressure of unshed tears and he was rather looking forward to being able to break down in solitude.

But then the mattress dipped beside him and a curtain of platinum blonde hair obscured his view of everything except Lottie’s scrutinizing gaze.

“Does Harry know?” she asked, always one to not mince words.

Louis turned his head and stuffed his face into his pillow. “Go to bed and let me wallow in peace,” he mumbled into the sheet.

“I mean, it’s got to be his, right? He’s the only guy I’ve seen within a mile of you since you broke up with dumbass Colin.”

“Hey, Colin was alright,” Louis protested weakly. Colin had been Louis’ last identifiable boyfriend and something of an experiment during Louis’ gap year – one he wouldn’t repeat, but also one that he didn’t regret.

“Colin was the human equivalent of soggy white bread.”

Although Louis wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, somehow the analogy didn’t seem too far off the mark. “Yes, Harry knows.”

“You two really should have been more careful,” she tsk-ed, putting on her best mum voice, and Louis groaned. “You know, if the situation were reversed, you probably would have murdered Eric by now.”

Louis shot upright at even the mention of Lottie and her current boyfriend possibly having sex. “That better not even be a possibility, or else I am permanently removing your bedroom door.”

“Hypocrite,” Lottie muttered before continuing on as if he hadn’t spoken. “But as it is, I don’t have nearly the height or the upper body strength for it. And besides, Harry seems like a pretty good guy.”

It was a question disguised as a statement, and Louis straightened out the hoodie that had gotten twisted around at the bottom. “He is.”

“…but?”

Louis crossed his arms over his chest defensively, but that just made his swollen tummy even more apparent and her eyes zeroed in on it. His arms dropped to the side and he deflated, leaning his back heavily against the headboard. “But he wants to keep the baby.”

“Maybe you should,” Lottie shrugged. “Probably wouldn’t even notice another little one running around in this zoo we live in.”

She reached out a hand toward his stomach, but Louis swatted it away. “I’m serious, Lots.”

“So am I.” She pivoted and climbed over top of Louis’ legs so that she could sit on his other side at the head of the bed. “We’re good at this, us Tomlinsons.”

“Says the girl who has been quoted claiming that she’d rather cut off her own arm than change another diaper.”

“Hey, the day Doris _finally_ stopped wearing nappies was one of the best days of my life, but I’d be willing to make an exception for my little—wait, do you know what you’re having yet?”

“A baby.”

Lottie made an annoyed sound in the back of her throat. “I meant boy or girl, dickhead.”

“No. And I don’t want to know.” She rolled her head to the side to look at him, but Louis cut her off before she could say anything. “Please don’t fight me on this; I know you’re just trying to do what’s best for me, but believe me when I say that I am too.”

Lottie considered his words for a moment, and though she couldn’t quite help a small pout forming on her lips, she didn’t say anymore about it.

Louis sunk down to a more horizontal position and turned to snuggle closer into his sister’s side. She carded her fingers through his hair just like his mother used to do. Her other hand rested close to his bump, and he took it and molded it around the small curve. The only other people Louis had allowed to touch him like that were Harry and the doctor, and it was a bit surreal to have someone else be a part of this now.

“Does Harry’s family know?” she asked softly, as if speaking too suddenly or too loudly might spook him like a turtle retreating into its shell.

“I- I don’t know,” he realized startlingly. 

In fact, Louis realized didn’t really know anything about Harry’s family. He talked about them, sure, and Louis overheard the occasional phone call. But there were times that Harry basically became another member of Louis’ family and he’d never even seen Harry’s mum or sister in person.

Maybe because he’d never asked to – never wanted to get too close.

And maybe that had exactly been Harry’s point.

***

As Louis approached the quaint little house on the outskirts of Manchester, he very nearly lost his nerve and turned the car around. It felt wrong. He had no right to be there, like an intruder to a part of Harry’s life into which he had not been invited. 

It had started out innocent enough. Louis had reached out to Anne under the pretense of seeking suggestions for a good birthday gift for Harry. It was easy enough to fine her through social media – Harry clearly adored her, posting about her every time they were together, and that only made another pang of guilt spear right through Louis’ apparently cold, unfeeling heart.

He kept the details of the nature of his relationship with Harry vague – unsure what, if anything, she even knew about him. But then she used that verbal ninja voodoo magic that all mums seemed to know how to do to get him to agree to come up for a visit, and suddenly Louis felt like he was the one about to be shamelessly swindled for information.

Louis had tried to decline at first, for obvious reasons, but he had to admit he was curious about the woman who’d raised Harry to be the man he was today. And maybe, just a little, she reminded him of his own mum and he would do anything to feel a little bit closer to her again.

Which was why he’d gotten up at an ungodly hour in the morning and taken the car before any of his sisters could formally protest and driven practically to the other side of the country. But now he was here, idling in the driveway and too afraid to actually get out of the car.

But then a figure appeared in the doorway and Louis knew it was too late to just leave. It was still January and the oversized jumper Louis wore ensured his bump was well hidden, but he still found himself tugging at the hem nervously as he ascended the stairs.

He saw so much of Harry in the face of the woman standing at the threshold. But her warm smile only lasted for about three seconds before her eyes scrunched up and a hand covered her mouth – as if that would do anything to hide the emotional tears streaming down her cheeks.

Louis immediately felt like the scum of the earth, because it was obvious in that moment that she knew exactly he was and what he was putting her son through.

“I’m so sorry, this was a mistake,” Louis mumbled over the knot in his own throat as he turned to leave.

“Please don’t leave,” she sniffled, laughing despite her tears. “Please. I’m sorry, I couldn’t bluff my way out of a paper bag, I don’t know why I thought I could play it cool meeting the boy carrying my grandchild.”

Although Louis knew she knew, it was still a bit of a shock to hear her say it so casually and he wondered if maybe she didn’t actually know _everything_ about their situation. “Ehm, I don’t know what he’s told you about me, but we—“ Her eyes held so much empathy and concern and somehow still sparkled just like Harry’s always did and Louis had to look away. “We’re not keeping it.” If she was surprised by this news, she hid it well – but as she’d just said, that wasn’t her strong suit, so Louis had to assume she was also aware of their recent blow-up. “I never planned for any of this to happen. I never wanted anyone to get hurt.”

Anne released a sort of soft, melancholy sigh of understanding. “Life does always seem to find a way to knock us on our asses, yeah?” She waited to continue until Louis nodded. “But if it wasn’t for those moments, I don’t think I ever would have noticed just how beautiful the sky is.”

She hooked a finger under Louis’ chin and tilted his head up and toward the surrounding countryside. It was early enough that pinks and oranges still painted the horizon and bathed the landscape in a warm glow that hinted at the spark of life still buried deep in the heart of winter, and Louis supposed that’s how it felt when Harry had entered his world – like he had been wandering a dark and desolate season and then all of a sudden there was light and joy and hope again.

Louis didn’t realize his tears had started flowing until he was wrapped up in Anne’s arms and her silk blouse was getting ruined. He tried to pull away, but she just hugged him closer, his belly now very prominently pressed into hers. She patted his back and cooed at him and even though they’d only just met, she was kind of the closest thing to a mum he had and he took full advantage.

“Alright, love,” she finally said when his sniffling had abated, “I think we’re both in desperate need of a nice warm cuppa.”

The conversation turned light as Anne puttered around the kitchen, pouring them each a cup of tea and firing up the oven in preparation for baking cookies. She asked about how school was going and commiserated with him about the horrors of living with teenage girls and told what must have been some family favorite anecdotes about Harry’s childhood. Apparently he was uncommonly kind even as a kid, and would often bring home half-squished bugs or frogs with missing legs and insist on attempting to nurse them back to health. His favorite had been a butterfly that only had one wing – after failing to make a new one out of colored paper, he kept it as a pet for a while, and Louis wondered if it looked anything like the one tattooed on his stomach. 

On multiple occasions, Louis had rolled his eyes watching Harry meticulously trap and release spiders and ants and ladybugs or ferry earthworms back to the dirt after a rainstorm or even transport a turtle or two across the road and again he marveled at Harry’s determined softness. “So he’s always been that way,” Louis mused.

Anne hummed in agreement. “Yes, my son does have a tendency to think with his heart rather than his head. A lot of people have taken advantage of that fact over the years.” Louis’ heart squeezed as he considered the possibility that he was one of those people, but she was quick to quell his fears. “This was long before you came along, love. Back when he was still in school.”

Though the discussion about it had been brief, Louis recalled Harry mentioning a period of apathy and depression in his youth. “Just before he decided to become a musician.”

“That’s right,” Anne smiled, but it faded quickly and her expression darkened. “The boy he was dating at the time was… well, he wasn’t a good person. Harry was young and innocent and… your identity is just so fragile at that age. The more time they spent together, the more my sweet little boy began to break apart before my eyes. By the time I finally saw what was happening – how he was being manipulated and talked down to and convinced that his thoughts were worthless, that- that _he_ was—“ She shook herself out of going down that rabbit hole again and forced a more neutral expression. “He was able to pick himself back up and he’s come so far, but… sometimes I think he’s still afraid of losing himself again.”

Harry was the most self-assured and genuine man that Louis knew, but there were times Harry’s shoulders slumped forward and he made himself appear so much smaller. And other times where he would stop in the middle of saying something and his brows would furrow as if he were having an internal argument with himself before choosing to finish his thought.

The fact that the emotional abuse he’d suffered might never completely heal was enough to make Louis both want to cry and punch something very hard. 

And also to reconsider everything he’d ever said to Harry. 

He knew the future Harry wanted included this baby, and because of that Louis tended to either railroad the conversation to other topics or shut it down entirely. The possibility that he had been unknowingly traumatizing Harry for months made the liquid in Louis’ stomach turn, and he slouched forward on the kitchen counter and hung his head in his hands. “Fuck, I’ve been horrible to him. God, why would he even _want_ to raise a baby with me?”

“You’re not horrible – if I’d had a single inclination that you were bad for my boy, you would have been subject to something a lot more dangerous than my cooking.” When Louis didn’t even crack a smile, Anne sighed and joined him on his side of the island, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Believe it or not, I understand why you’re considering adoption.”

As far as Louis was concerned it was a decision, not a consideration, but he didn’t correct her on the matter. “Harry doesn’t. I don’t know that anyone with such a perfect, idyllic childhood could.”

Anne snorted and shook her head. “He probably remembers his childhood a little differently than I do. I’m sure he remembers things like having spaghetti with Lucky Charms for dinner. But we _had_ to do a lot of experimenting in the kitchen because there were weeks I couldn’t afford groceries and we had to make do with whatever was already in the pantry.” It had to be some weird pregnancy craving thing, because for some unfathomable reason that sounded rather delicious to Louis. “Or how we would take blankets out to the garden and pretend we were camping. But that was as grand a vacation I could ever give them because I could never be off work long enough to take them anywhere.”

“But you were happy.” Louis looked up into Anne’s face for confirmation, but his eyes were fuzzy with unshed tears. “Weren’t you happy?”

“We were.” She kissed him on the crown of his head and he leaned into her side. “But there’s lots of ways to be happy, love.” 

“Pretty sure there’s only one way to make Harry happy.”

Anne tutted in admonishment. “You know that’s not true – he was happy with you long before there was a baby in the picture.”

Memories flashed through Louis’s mind as he pulled at the paper tea tag hanging over the side of his now empty cup – their innuendo pancakes and Grease duets and Nicholas Sparks marathons and shower sex. “He made me happy too. Before I went and fucked it all up, anyway.”

Anne pulled away, pulling him up and out of his seat with her. “Come with me; I want to show you something.”

Louis followed her down the hall and up a set of stairs. She paused by the first door on the right and waited for Louis to go in.

“This is the room Harry grew up in,” she explained, following Louis into the small space. “And where he would stay if he ever bothered to visit his dear old mum.”

The room was somehow both everything and nothing like Harry. There were obscure vintage vinyls covering every surface, effectively ruining the clean lines of the aesthetically minimalist décor. Sheer lace tops were mixed in with white button-downs and bowties. It was like two different personalities were occupying the same room, and even the small collection of guitars perched in the corner of the room displayed this dichotomy.

Anne ushered him that direction and pointed to the instrument closest to the bed. It was entirely unplayable – the neck was cracked and there were torn and faded stickers all over the body and several of the strings were missing – and Louis was fascinated by it.

“I bet that one’s got a few stories in her,” she mused. “It was already second – or third or fourth – hand by the time we got it, and he’s gotten nicer ones since then, obviously. Ones that you can actually play. But he can’t seem to let go of this one.” Louis’ fingers gingerly grazed all the nicks and worn shallows in the wood, and she smiled at the delicacy with which he handled it, like it was a hallowed object. In a way, to her at least, it kind of was. “I think you should bring this to him.”

“Why?”

“I thought you were looking for a birthday gift,” she teased, tossing his own flimsy excuse back at him.

“Right, yeah. I guess. But… why this?”

“As a reminder of what’s important.” He stopped investigating the guitar so that he could search her face instead and she smiled at him. “This guitar gave him back his life once. But I very much believe that, after all this time, you will be the one that finally gives him back his heart.”

***

Anne had told him they they’d tried many times to get Harry’s first guitar fixed to no avail, and maybe Louis just needed to convince himself that even the most hopelessly broken things could still be fixed, but he vowed to find a way for it to make music again before it was back in Harry’s hands.

That way came in the surprising form of his elderly boss at the diner. Apparently Mary was a… ‘supporter’ of a well-known rock band back in the 70s and she knew a guy who knew a guy who was one of the roadies that she was more than willing to have a reason to reach out to and Louis _so_ did not want to know any more of those details.

Mary’s… friend was able to salvage the body of the instrument with all its imperfections and character, but he’d had to completely replace the neck and the smooth new wood looked out of place on the weathered frame. It was probably better that way, from a technical standpoint, but Louis couldn’t help defacing it just a little inscription reminding Harry of what he would always be: ENOUGH.

In exchange, Louis’d had to promise to bring Harry and the boys around for dinner more often, but he hoped it was one he’d be able to keep because he was now standing outside Harry’s apartment with a freshly baked tin of Anne’s cookies in one hand and a working guitar in the other and… and absolutely no idea what to say.

His pulse raced as he reached up and rapped lightly on the door once, twice. It could have been ten seconds or ten minutes that he was standing there waiting, but eventually he realized that his fight-or-flight response had been activated for nothing – no one was home.

He should have expected that Harry hadn’t just been locked in his flat all this time waiting and moping and pining. That he would be spending the Saturday after his birthday out partying with friends or playing with the band or something. But no, Louis had expected to just walk right back up and be welcomed back into Harry’s life.

Louis set down the guitar and the sweets and dialed Harry’s number. It rang until it went to voicemail and he sighed, resting his forehead against the door.

“Hey, Haz. It’s, ehm- it’s Louis.” Obviously – not the strongest opener. “I’m leaving something outside your apartment. For you. It doesn’t have to be- like, it can be whatever you want it to be. A birthday present. An apology. A… a parting gift.” Louis paused to steady his breath and pick at a fleck of loose paint on the wooden frame. “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like you didn’t matter to me because you do.” More, probably, than either of them realized until this moment. “And I know I can be hardheaded and guarded, but I—I mean, I didn’t mean to, and I probably don’t deserve to, but I think… I think I might love you?” Louis shook his head and let out a breathless chuckle. “Fuck, sorry, that was probably a stupid thing to say, but I guess it’s out there now. So, ehm, yeah. I love you. And… happy birthday? Oh for fuck’s sake,” he mumbled incredulously at himself before hanging up the phone.

It had taken too long for Louis to put a name to the feelings running deep inside him, but now that he had he felt the tiniest bit lighter. Like trying to keep the emotion contained required him to siphon extra willpower from every other area of his life and now he could just _be_.

Whether he would _be_ with someone or _be_ alone… well, that was up to Harry now.


	11. That Fluttering Feeling

After what Louis considered a rather bold confession, he had expected… well, _some_ thing. A bouquet of flowers. A Romeo and Juliet balcony scene. Hell, he’d even settle for a text message at this point.

But he didn’t hear a peep.

He spent the whole rest of the evening entirely distracted, to the point that Lottie even chased him out of the kitchen for fear that he’d burn the house down. The subsequent attempts to catch up on school work and prepare some slides for a meeting at the financial firm next week and even try out some of those ridiculous pregnancy yoga poses because his back was positively _killing_ him were not enough to keep his mind off of the fact that his phone had mocked him with its silence for hours on end.

When Louis finally gave in and tried to go to bed, it was impossible for him to actually fall asleep. Partly because he was fairly certain he’d pulled a muscled trying to get into something called a Garland Pose, but mostly probably because he kept foolishly expecting a chime or ring or buzz to disturb him and the fact that it hadn’t was putting him on edge.

So maybe Louis was in a bit of a mood when he dropped some bills off at the post and kicked a dent into the metal receiving box. Or when he returned a few books to the library and made such a scene about them being past due that the librarian ended up waiving the fee. 

When he started his shift at the diner that afternoon and began threatening to pour hot coffee into one customer’s lap, Mary had enough sense to relegate him to cooking in the back. But all the added heat from the ovens drained his energy and his altered center of balance made him clumsy and the fog of pregnancy brain often made him forget what he was doing while in the middle of doing it.

Somehow Louis made it through ‘til evening without bursting into tears or cutting off a finger or getting arrested, but he was not looking forward to going home and suffering through another restless night. So, even though everything was aching, and even though he had a full day of classes tomorrow, Louis offered to work a double. Mary promptly declined, both because it wasn’t good for him and because she wasn’t sure she could keep him out of trouble for that long.

But when she discovered that he was planning on going out and waiting for a bus to take him home even though it was currently snowing heavily, Mary nearly had a heart attack. “You’ll catch pneumonia,” she insisted, though Louis knew from microbiology class and, well, common sense, that that was not how you contracted a disease. “Just hang out in my office until Ranya gets here; she can run things for a bit while I drive you home.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Louis sighed, knowing he was fighting a losing battle.

“Well it’s not just you we’ve got to keep healthy anymore now, hmm?”

Again, Louis should not have been surprised that people were able to put the pieces together about his current condition, but he supposed if Harry was going to continue to ignore him for the rest of time that having other people around that cared about and supported him probably wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

He nodded and she ushered him into the roll-y chair behind her desk. He must have looked as exhausted as he felt because Mary offered to dim the lights and let him have a little nap before they left. Despite her admonishing gaze, Louis declined, but was instead delivered a plate of biscuits and gravy and a hot cup of tea.

Louis’ stomach did this unusual little flip and he took that to mean it was protesting the lack of consumption when food was in such close proximity. Maybe it was that the most of his childhood meals consisted of what was on this plate, or maybe he had been ignoring his own basic needs even more than he usually did, but Louis managed to wolf down every bite in about five minutes flat.

A few months ago, back when space for his internal organs wasn’t at such a premium, his eating patterns weren’t much of a concern. Now, though, his stomach was either unwilling or unable to make room for all the food he’d just ingested, and suddenly he was eternally grateful that Mary’s office had its own private bathroom.

The still intermittent bouts of nausea didn’t usually take him so off guard, and perhaps that was why the already unpleasant act felt that much more violent and exhausting. He was taking in so little air between the coughing and heaving that it was making him lightheaded and also maybe hallucinating because somewhere between 10 seconds and 10 years later he felt a familiar hand at his back and a deep voice washed over him and it couldn’t possibly have been Harry because it had been over 24 hours since he’d told him he loved him and if Harry the hopeless romantic had reciprocated those feelings even a little then Louis probably wouldn’t have ended up with his pounding head in the toilet right now.

Louis plopped down onto his bum and leaned heavily against the wall. Sure enough, Harry was staring at him with eyebrows drawn together in concern and Louis didn’t know whether he was more angry or excited that Harry had finally showed up.

“What are you doing here?” Louis asked testily and… angry, he was definitely erring on the side of being angry.

“Are you okay?” Harry asked, retrieving the cup of tea from the main room and placing it in Louis’ hands before taking a seat beside him on the floor.

“Peachy,” Louis grumbled, taking a cautious sniff and sip of the warm liquid. The strong floral and fruity aromas did wonders toward settling his stomach and maybe the pendulum was swinging back in the direction of being happy that Harry was there.

“Ehm, well,” Harry ran a hand back through his hair, only to have it immediately fall back into place, “it’s kind of… it’s about that voicemail you left me.”

This sort of strange, almost pained look crossed Harry’s face, and Louis nearly choked on his tea.

Shit.

Harry didn’t feel the same way. 

Of course he didn’t. Louis should have known – he’d had to pour his heart out to Harry’s fucking _door._ And Harry was such a nice guy that he probably didn’t know how to tell Louis the truth and… fuck, everything was going to be so awkward now. “Hey. Yeah. No, it’s not—I mean, just because I said it doesn’t mean you have to, you know… say anything.” Harry opened his mouth, but Louis so did not want Harry try and let him down gently. “I just mean… like, I don’t expect you to say it too. That’s not why I said it. I just, ehm… meant it, I guess.”

Harry was quiet for a long moment as he pinched his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger. “Can I be honest with you?” he finally asked warily.

Ah, hell, might as well rip the band-aid off. “Okay.”

Harry folded his legs under him and his eyebrows scrunched together. “See, the boys took me out celebrating for my birthday last night – well, all weekend really. I had been moping around for weeks and then they finally got me out of the house, and then you called and—“ Harry shook his head as if to clear it. 

Harry had been gesticulating wildly, and Louis took his sudden stillness as the precursor to the bad news. “And?” he prompted.

Harry huffed in frustration. “The details are still a bit fuzzy, and honestly I didn’t recall much of anything until this afternoon, but… but I remember seeing your name light up my home screen and I remember wanting to answer, but then I remember Niall yelling something too Irish for me to make out and somehow it ended up out of my hands and at the bottom of a pint.” Harry shuffled his feet so that he was sitting cross-legged and could lean closer to Louis. “I know we’re fighting, but you called me and I wasn’t there for you and I probably shouldn’t have just shown up at your work like this, but I just… I needed to know you were okay.”

“So… you didn’t hear the voicemail I left?” was all Louis got from that whole story. It was both a relief and a burden.

“I didn’t. But… I think I know what it was you said.” 

“Oh?” Louis’s eyes found Harry’s face and he nodded.

“And I know you said I didn’t have to say it too, but I really do.”

Louis’ eyes widened and he felt his face heat up. “ _Oh_.”

“Louis, I’m sorry too. So fucking sorry. I was being overly sensitive and stubborn and it’s a long story but my mum somehow left this gift outside my door that made it all so clear that how I was acting was more about my past than our present and I should have been the one to reach out first, but I guess I didn’t know how, you know?”

It took Louis a minute to realize what Harry was talking about. So Harry thought Anne had given him the guitar – made sense, since it was in her house and came with a tin of her homemade cookies. Whatever, they could clear that up later when Louis had some time to explain why exactly he had been round to Harry’s mum’s house without his knowledge.

More importantly, Harry thought Louis’ message had been one of atonement. He wasn’t wrong – technically Louis had apologized in his message – but he was entirely unaware of what Louis considered the most important part. 

And now that Louis had the chance to take those words back, he was starting to wonder if he’d really meant them in the first place. He probably just missed Harry and all the hormones currently running through his body were messing with his brain. It was then he decided that he should wait until after everything was sorted with the birth and the adoption and then, if he still felt the same way, he could tell Harry about it. After everything Harry had been through, the last thing Louis wanted to do was wield the ‘L’ word around like a puppy with a sword.

Louis took another sip of tea, wrinkling his nose at its tepidity. “Guess we both said some things we’re not proud of that night.”

Harry shifted again so that he was literally on his knees in front of Louis. “Can you please forgive me?”

Louis set the cup down and pivoted so that he was primarily using Harry as support instead of the wall. “Only if you forgive me first.”

Harry grinned and curled himself around Louis’ body, allowing his chin to rest on Louis’ head. “So. What exactly did your voicemail say – think you can give me a dramatic retelling?”

Louis’ heart rate automatically quickened at the thought, but he joked smoothly, “Actually, I just needed help deciding what toppings I should get on my pizza.” Harry gave him a friendly little squeeze and Louis pretended to try to wriggle out of his grasp before settling down in his arms again. “Don’t remember word-for-word, really, but the gist of it was that I get why you were upset, but I need you to know that you are important to me. That I value your opinions and that I’m listening. Even when it’s hard, even when I don’t agree… well, I hear you. And I’m sorry if I ever made you feel otherwise.”

The confession brought Harry close to tears, which then of course brought Louis to full-on tears. Harry peppered Louis’ face all over with little kisses and soon it was hard to tell which wet patches were from what.

“Alright, alright, enough with the cat bath,” Louis grumbled, trying in vain to fix his hair back into some presentable condition. “Should probably be getting home anyway – I’m sure Mary’s none too happy about having her office taken over by the mess of us.”

“She didn’t seem too hesitant about letting me back here in the first place. I’m sure she’d let us stay if I just asked her nicely.”

Harry adopted this smug, too-innocent lopsided grin and- yeah, she probably would. “I’ve got class tomorrow,” Louis reminded him, “and it might be helpful if I was actually, you know, awake.”

It wasn’t all that late, but Louis did look a little ragged and Harry’s nurturing instincts were beginning to take over. “We don’t have to stay here. You don’t even have to stay up, I just… I’m not quite ready to have you out of my arms just yet.”

Louis pretended to think about it for a minute, but honestly, how the hell was Louis going to say no to that? “Alright, but only if we go to yours. My house is loud and my mattress is shit and you’ve got that giant body pillow thing that’s utterly ridiculous and also the most comfortable thing I’ve ever wrapped my legs around – no offense.”

“None taken – I’ve spent more than a few nights pretending that pillow was you lying next to me.”

Louis snorted. “Are you saying I’m soft, Styles?” Harry pinched at the bit of extra fluff that had been slowly accumulating at Louis’ hips, which—fair. “Fine, but that pillow is mine tonight. You’ll just have to settle for the real thing instead.”

“Whatever you want.” In Harry’s mind, he was getting the better end of the deal anyway.

After shooting off a quick text to Lottie to let her know that she would now be responsible for getting the littles off to school in the morning, Louis allowed Harry to hoist him to his feet. Mary gave them a knowing smile as they passed, and while Louis tried to avoid eye contact as much as possible, Harry leaned down to whisper something in her ear that had her giggling like a school girl and somehow he ended up with two free muffins in his hand.

Louis had intended to make a beeline for Harry’s bedroom as soon as they got to his flat, but then he saw the old, worn-out guitar propped up against the couch and paused.

“My first guitar,” Harry explained, pulling the instrument into his lap as he took a seat. He plucked a few notes and closed his eyes, a wistful smile on his face. “Dunno how she got it down here to me, or even how she managed to get it fixed. It’s been broken for years.”

Oh. Right. Harry still had no idea that Louis had gone to visit Anne. “Ehm, I might actually be able to provide a bit of insight there.”

“How?” Harry asked on a laugh.

“’Cause I’m the one who got it from her?” Harry stopped strumming and looked up at him, eyebrows drawn together in confusion. “Wouldn’t happen to have any more of those cookies left, would you?” Louis asked, hoping for a distraction.

“You- you saw my mum? How did you—when? Where?”

Louis shifted on his feet and preemptively put a hand up in defense. “Look, I wasn’t trying to be a creeper or anything, but after we fought it made me realize that I hadn’t, like, really met your family at all. I just wanted to meet her, you know? I mean, she’s your mum. But then she already knew who I was and made me cookies and showed me your fucking bedroom and I just… it was almost like I had a mum again and I—“

Louis’ ramblings were cut off by Harry’s lips on his. “You fixed my guitar,” he whispered quietly against Louis’ mouth.

“Well, technically Mary got that sorted. Quite a questionable past, that one,” Louis joked breathlessly.

Harry’s lips made their way along Louis’ jaw and paused by his ear. “You carved that message into it for me.”

It took a solid few seconds for Louis’ brain to recognize the need for a response and he nodded. “Meant it. Well, you’re more than enough, really, but the neck’s not that long and my handwriting’s a bit shit.”

Harry framed Louis’ entire face with kisses before finally making it back to his mouth. “You know what I really want to do right now?” 

Harry’s long fingers were digging into the tight muscles at the base of Louis’ back and he was a bit beyond words but managed a sort of humming noise that held a vaguely interrogative tone. 

Harry’s hands wandered up Louis’ sides, around his shoulders, and then up his neck until they became entangled in his hair. He used his hold there to pull Louis’ head back slightly so as to have better access to the sensitive skin beneath his ear. “What I’d really like,” he paused to tease the area a bit with his tongue, “Is to write you a song,” he finished, smiling mischievously when he pulled away and Louis’ mouth literally dropped open.

Louis stood motionless, waiting for the physical intimacy to continue, but apparently Harry was serious. He opened his leather notebook and took back up his guitar, and Louis watched for a while as he alternated between writing a few lines and strumming a few bars, sometimes repeating a line with slight variations to find which pattern he liked best.

At first Louis was just immobilized with built up sexual tension, but then he became enraptured with Harry’s songwriting progress. Louis’ mind was entirely analytical. He could match pitch or memorize a piano piece, but lacked the creative improvisational skills essential to either write or perform original works. The fact that Harry seemed to be able to compose so effortlessly was both beautiful and fascinating.

He probably could have watched Harry all night long, but 1) that would be creepy, and 2) he had other things he should be doing. Too wired to go to sleep, as he’d originally intended, Louis took out his laptop and a textbook to get started on an essay he had to write on social hierarchies in the animal kingdom for the stupid Ecology class he was required to take – he was much better at math and chemical equations, which was part of why he’d decided on a career path in the sciences, and was rather miffed at having to wax poetic about bee friendships or whatever. But maybe Harry’s lyricism would inspire him.

There were not very many good working surfaces in the living room, but Louis sat in one of the side chairs and managed to set his laptop up on the arm and balance the book on his knee. The allure of Harry’s music was strong, and he often had to re-read the same paragraphs over and over again before being able to piece together anything meaningful. 

Several times Louis was caught off guard by these odd little twinges in his midesction, but then he’d shift position and they would go away for a while. They must have been causing him to release some sort of involuntary noise because Harry kept pausing to ask him if he was alright and Louis kept having to wave him off and tell him to stop worrying.

But then Louis felt this entirely unexpected and out-of-place sensation, like having your stomach drop out going down the hill of a roller coaster, and it was unfamiliar and he had no basis for comparison but suddenly Louis knew exactly what this was. He got up so suddenly that the heavy book crashed to the floor and startled Harry into an upright position.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked, closing the short distance between them.

“I think- I think I just felt the baby move.”

Harry’s eyes went wide and a huge grin broke across his face. “What? Just now?”

“Yeah.” Louis hiked up his jumper and folded down the top of his stretchy pants, exposing the full curve of his tummy. They both just sort of stood there waiting, but nothing was happening. “Try playing again,” Louis suggested, remembering that the little pangs had seemed to coincide with the times Louis’ focus had been pulled back to Harry’s guitar.

Harry sat so that he was eye level with Louis’ bump and started strumming the chorus he’d been working on – perhaps a bit more vigorously than it was intended to be played – and then he saw, actually _saw_ Louis’ belly move and hastily tossed the guitar aside.

“Can I- I mean, could I feel it?”

In response, Louis took Harry’s outstretched hand and molded it around his firm swell, but all movement stopped as soon as Harry’s music did. After several minutes of stillness, Louis mused, “Guess the baby takes after you.” Then, at Harry’s questioning look, explained, “Music nerd.”

“Heyyy,” Harry whined, continuing to search Louis’ abdomen for any sign of activity.

Harry may have pretended to take offense at the jab, but the corners of his lips would not stay down and he was trying to trick the baby into moving by humming ridiculously loudly and the words ‘I love you’ almost slipped out of Louis’ mouth again and _what_ was wrong with him? Perhaps keeping his emotions – whether real or imagined – in check through the rest of the pregnancy was going to be more challenging than he thought.

“We need to talk about what we’re gonna do once the baby’s born,” Louis blurted out in somewhat of a panic.

Harry’s hand fell away and he blew out an exasperated breath – was he really not allowed to enjoy this for even a minute? “We do, but we don’t need to talk about it right this second.”

Louis used the coffee table to stabilize himself as he got down to his knees in front of Harry. “Third trimester’s right around the corner. If we’re going with adoption, we want to have plenty of time to pick the right people, yeah?” Louis waited for Harry to nod in acknowledgment, even if it was reluctant. “And if we decide to keep it, we’ll at have to start buying things and figuring out where to put a nursery and—“

“If we keep it?” Harry interrupted, his head jerking up at the realization of what Louis had just said – surely he hadn’t heard correctly.

Louis’ knees were apparently not up to the task of supporting his increased mass, and so, with more than a little assistance, he shifted to take the seat next to Harry on the couch. “I meant what I said earlier, Haz. What you want matters just as much as what I want, but either way we need to be on the same page because otherwise we’ll end up in a place that can’t be fixed with baked goods and an old guitar.”

Harry deflated, leaning back into the corner of the couch, and Louis nudged aside one of his legs so that he could slide into the open space and snuggle up against Harry’s chest. He settled his hand on Louis’ stomach, and Louis placed his hand on top of Harry’s. “Alright, what do you propose?”

They took turns laying out all their highest hopes and greatest fears to each other, all the practical and emotional motivations behind every thought and every ideal. Sometimes the conversation turned into more of an argument, but in the end they settled on a compromise each of them could live with. Harry agreed to go to the adoption agency and look at potential adoptive parents, and Louis agreed to wait until after the baby was born to decide whether or not to give it to them.

Neither of them particularly liked the ambiguity this left in their situation, but secretly both were convinced that their respective concessions would, in the end, persuade the other to adopt their point of view.

For now they could continue walking forward in this direction together, but eventually that path was going to fork and they would have to make a choice that would irreparably change the course of their entire lives… and inevitably leave one of them with a broken heart.


	12. Enough

Towards the end of February, just after their first third trimester doctor’s appointment, Louis was finally able to get Harry to hold up his end of the bargain.

Although Louis was the one pushing for this, actually stepping foot in the adoption agency put him on edge. Everyone was so cordial and understanding and sympathetic and even though they were probably genuine in their interactions with him, Louis couldn’t help but feel like the whole atmosphere was slightly off – like he should be feeling more shame and regret for what he was about to do. 

When they were called back to the office of their assigned case worker, Louis was surprised to see a young, quite handsome man standing behind the desk with a warm smile – for some reason, he had expected to be greeted by some stern, stoic older woman, hardened and weathered by too many years at a difficult job. Instead they got Eric Price, whose ordinary khakis and plain white button-down did little to disguise the perfectly manicured Ken-doll underneath.

“I know that none of this is easy,” he began, shaking both their hands. “We’re all just trying to achieve the best possible outcome for everyone involved. For many that walk through these doors, that outcome includes adoption. But a lot of times it doesn’t. I’m not here to sway your opinion one way or another, and at this point in the process I’m little more than an information source. So before I begin my little spiel, do you two have any questions for me?”

In almost every other situation, Louis came prepared with a thousand questions in hand. And honestly, he’d tried to start a list as soon as they’d scheduled this appointment. But it was like his mind got distracted every time before he had a chance to think through any of the details. Maybe he didn’t want to have to think through any of the details.

But that was what they had Eric for.

So they sat and listened while Eric explained all the options – whether they would want an open or closed adoption, whether they’d want to meet the adoptive parents in person, whether they’d want their information available if the child ever wanted to find them. Harry was noticeably silent throughout this discussion, but perked up when Eric mentioned that even if they moved forward on this path there was still a window of time after the birth when they could change their minds.

“We’re allowed to do that, even if you’ve already told another couple they’re going to be parents?”

Eric was unruffled by Harry’s slightly accusing tone. “Even if you’ve already signed the papers – it’s all written out in the contract.” There was still suspicion in Harry’s eyes, and he tried to put their minds at ease. “I’m not on anyone’s side here; my goal is not to take your child from you. If you decide adoption is not what you want, we are not going to try and force you into proceeding – it’s painful and complicated and entirely unnecessary – because a happy family is a happy family.”

When they began to hammer out the details of what would go in the contract, of course Louis and Harry tended to disagree on every option, but most of the time Harry just ended up deferring to whatever Louis wanted because, well, Louis was the only one who really wanted any of this anyway.

It all became a little too real, though, once they were able to start actually looking through the files of potential adoptive parents. They would be able to pick from countless combinations of income ranges, genders, size of the family, occupations, even geographic area, and Louis so did not want to pick someone close by enough that he could be out walking one day and run into a kid that looked just like him and have to wonder…

It was too weird looking through the happy, hopeful faces of real people with real lives that so desperately wanted something that, for Louis, had happened entirely by accident. None of it was fair, and maybe after a while they were both a little cranky because they always found some little thing to dislike about each of the files they perused.

One was a fan of the wrong football team. One had cats instead of dogs. One was too old, another too young. One had a ‘live.laugh.love’ decal on the wall in their house and another ran marathons for fucking _fun_ – how did they expect them to give their child away to any of these nutters?

“Maybe there’s a reason we can’t picture any of these couple raising our child,” Harry suggested.

“You mean because the only people we can picture raising it are right in this room?” He narrowed his eyes as Harry shrugged innocently and snatched another file off the table. “How ‘bout these folks? They don’t seem too bad.” He shoved the folder into Harry’s lap and read over his shoulder. “See? House in the suburbs. Nice big family dog. One older boy already in school. They’ve even got family in Doncaster!”

Harry handed the clipped stack of papers back over to Louis, unable to look any longer at the picture of the smiling family. “Whatever you want.”

Louis suppressed a sigh and again placed the photo in Harry’s hands. “Just try and picture it. Please? Look at their garden – there’s a swing set and a bird bath and a small plot for vegetables. Can’t you see a little tot learning how to swing from their big brother? Or chasing the pup around the fence? Or getting their hands all dirty digging for earthworms in the soil?”

Although Louis was looking down at the picture, Harry was looking up at Louis. And Louis was… well, serene. Harry tried to keep his mind open, as he’d promised – if the idea of someone else raising their child brought him peace, perhaps Harry could find it too. “I can see it.”

“You can?” Louis looked back up at Harry curiously, and though there was still sadness in his eyes, there was also the slightest bit of acceptance.

“Yeah, I can. Good parents always want what’s best for their children. And you’re a good parent, Lou. So if this is what you want, if this is the family you think would be best for our child, then that’s enough for me.”

Shit, was Harry actually agreeing to this now? Louis studied the file in his hands with a new sense of responsibility – if there was anything wrong with these people, anything at all, he would never be able to forgive himself if he gave their child over to them. He pored over every bit of written information and was seconds away from deeming them suspiciously perfect when he saw it.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, they’re _vegan_!”

***

The agency continued to send virtual files of potential adoptive families, and between perusing those profiles and getting through midterms and obsessively checking his email for notification about whether or not he would be accepted to Dr. Blake’s internship next year, Louis barely tore his eyes away from the computer for the better part of a month.

When early April rolled around, Harry finally took a stand against Louis’ self-imposed hermitude.

“The sun is out, the flowers are blooming, you have the evening off, and we are playing at The Wishbone tonight.”

Louis made a noise of mild interest – he’d never been to the place, but supposedly a lot of musicians were ‘discovered’ on that stage, whatever that meant, and he knew the band had been trying to get a gig there for years. “That’s great, love. Happy for you.”

Apparently Harry was going to have to offer a more explicit invitation. “Why don’t you come? Might do me some good to have my muse there.”

Louis rolled his eyes – Harry was writing bangers way before he came into the picture. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly fit for clubbing at the moment. Can barely get myself to and from the toilet, much less rage in a mosh pit.”

“When have our shows ever incited a mosh pit?” Harry asked, eyebrow cocked in amusement at the idea. “Or does every crowd feel like a most pit when you’re only five foot s—“

“Oi! No need to go slandering about my height.”

“Does that mean you’ll come?” Harry wasn’t usually so insistent, and wouldn’t have pushed if he thought Louis truly didn’t feel up to a night out, but it was kind of a big deal and they were debuting a new song tonight and he really wanted Louis to be there to hear it.

“Fine, fine,” Louis said, waving him off even as his eyes gravitated back toward his computer screen.

“And the laptop will stay here?”

Harry seemed more anxious than Louis was used to, and with his pleading tone and puppy dog eyes Louis realized that maybe he had been unintentionally distancing himself again. Looking through the same profiles over and over again wouldn’t bring him any closer to a decision, and staring at his email wouldn’t make the university’s decision come any faster, and if he tried to fit any more organic chemistry equations into his memory he was fairly certain that something in his brain would pop.

They still had about an hour before Harry would have to leave for sound check, and though Louis wasn’t entirely sure he could even physically get into a comfortable position, he could think of at least one way they could simultaneously relieve some of their stress and feel closer again.

“I don’t want to tire you out right before your set, and I understand if you find my body the least sexy thing in the universe at the moment, but if you’re up for it we could—“

Louis’s thought was cut off with a kiss, and with what he thought must have been a Herculean effort, Harry swept him off the couch and carried him to the bedroom.

***

The Wishbone was not what Louis was expecting. Small and unassuming on the outside, inside it looked rather like a cigar lounge – cracked leather couches and solid wood furniture swathed in a dim, warm light. The patrons themselves were more eclectic, varying widely in age and attire; some were eating, but the vast majority were simply standing around chatting and having a drink. 

Louis ordered a club soda with lime, settled into one of the wingback chairs at the back of the room, pulled out a book – one of the rare few he read for pleasure – and waited for the live music portion of the evening to begin.

It was a good thing Louis had gotten there early, because by the time he had finished the last of his second soda there was not a single seat left in the house. Those who couldn’t sit lined the walls or knelt by the tables, and there was a calm, expectant, almost reverent energy to the place and Louis could practically feel the importance of this moment.

He was used to seeing the band leap out onto the stage and hype up the crowd for their first song, and so was surprised when the lights faded out save for the one highlighting Harry alone on stage with that old beat-up guitar. There was no preamble, no introduction or explanation, but Louis recognized the pattern as his fingers danced along the strings – it was the same one he’d played over and over again the night after he’d given it to him.

And though there was no way Harry could have known where Louis had been sitting, or even have been able to see him in the nearly blackened room, but he was sure Harry’s eyes were locked on his when he started to sing.

_Tell me goodbye  
Sun didn’t rise  
So I’ll color my skies  
With the blue in your eyes_

It was strange to Louis, seeing Harry on stage like this. He was so used to there being two Harrys – the person and the performer – but somehow in this moment he was both. There was all the drama and passion of performer Harry, but without sacrificing a single ounce of the tenderness and vulnerability that Louis had fallen in love with. Well, had maybe fallen in love with. Possibly.

_Tell me where you’ve been, love  
Tell me where do I begin, love_

More lights came up to illuminate the rest of the band at the same time they came in with supporting harmonies and instruments to begin the chorus.

_Forever’s not long enough  
And my heart’s not strong enough  
When I feel like giving up  
You’ll be enough  
For me_

Like it always was with Harry, it was like they were the only two people in the room – hell, in the whole universe. But the sudden flip in his tummy reminded him that it wasn’t just the two of them, and maybe it was just his imagination but it seemed like the emotion with which Harry was singing multiplied and turned pleading.

_Jump in the deep end  
Don’t know how to swim  
Why can’t you see it  
I’m holding my breath_

At that moment, all instruments and other voices dropped out and the lights dimmed to their original spotlight on Harry, and it was as if the audience held its breath as well. Then Harry finally picked out another chord for the final chorus.

_Forever’s not long enough  
And my heart’s not strong enough  
When you see I gave it all  
Will it be enough_

…and that was it. The final guitar strum echoed throughout the silent room, unresolved in the middle of the phrase and leaving everyone on the edge of their seats wanting more. There were a few more seconds of longing before the crowd erupted into thunderous applause. Harry just gave a little bow and quietly thanked everyone for listening as the rest of the boys got into position to begin their usual set.

Louis tried to sit still as they transitioned into their usual peppy starter, but he was more than a little overwhelmed. That song was… well, it was everything. It was grief and romance and longing and doubt and need and hope. It was everything Louis felt at any given moment with Harry – too much all at once – and made him nauseous enough to seek refuge in the fresh air.

Although the room was dim and the stage lights bright, Harry saw the blur of movement in the back of the club and instinctively knew it was Louis. It took all of his willpower to finish out their first real intro song, and then he signaled Niall to take over vocals for the next one so he could sneak out the side door after Louis.

Harry found him leaning facing the side of the building, head nestled into the crook of the arm pressed against the brick while the other was wrapped around his stomach.

“Louis?” Harry kept far enough away that he could continue examining the whole of Louis’ body language. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re supposed to be on stage,” Louis mumbled, the sound muffled in his elbow. He would have lifted his eyes, but he didn’t particularly want Harry to see him crying – again – and insist on bailing on the band to attend to his needs. Again.

“Not being a solo artist has its perks. Are you okay?” he asked again. The song he’d written was vague, but he was certain Louis knew it was about him – them – and wondered if maybe he’d crossed a line by performing it to so many people without discussing it with him.

Louis rubbed the last bits of moisture from his eyes against his sleeve and turned to face Harry. He wanted to say that no, he most certainly was not okay. That everything he thought he knew seemed to fly out the window every time Harry looked at him like that. That he had survived solely through practiced indifference and being with Harry forced him to feel things again. That the joy and sadness sparking to life again in his heart were so intense that sometimes both just felt like pain.

“Just needed some air,” Louis said instead.

“You sure?” Harry tried to keep his eyes trained on Louis’ face, but he couldn’t help glancing down at the hand still pressed to his midsection.

“Don’t feel too good, s’all.”

Harry sincerely doubted that was the whole truth, but pressed the back of his hand to Louis’ forehead anyway. “Hmm, you are a little warm,” he concluded.

“I am a human furnace,” Louis corrected, “and you are outside with no coat and no body fat whatsoever.”

Harry grinned down at Louis’ playful scowl. “I can think of a few ways to warm me up.” When Louis didn’t roll his eyes or give him a light slap on the arm or even a teasing kiss, Harry’s concern grew. “Talk to me, Lou. What’s on your mind? Is it- was it the song? Was that not okay? I guess I should have told you about it.”

“The song was beautiful, Haz,” Louis said on a sigh. A melancholic sort of beautiful, but beautiful nonetheless.

Harry’s shoulders hunched and his thumbs flicked at the many rings on his fingers. “You really think so?”

Louis now recognized this gesture as one of insecurity and doubt. “I think the whole room fell in love with you tonight.”

Harry’s breath caught – did Louis just admit to being in love with him? The way he was staring up at him, eyes wide and adoring, Harry could almost believe it. But there was so much sadness there too, so much pain. No, Louis was… he was just being polite. Exaggerating for dramatic effect. “We should probably get back in there.”

Louis glanced skeptically at the closed door. “Highly doubt the chair I abandoned is still available.”

“I’m sure someone would give up their seat for someone in your condition.”

Louis frowned down at his bump – he hated that other people saw and treated him differently because of it – and felt another flip, as if the baby was in agreement with Harry’s suggestion. “Well, the little one does certainly seem to be enjoying the show.”

“Yeah?” Harry reached out a hand and placed it next to Louis’, only to stick out his lip in a pout and let out a whine when he still couldn’t feel anything.

“I’m none too happy about it either, love – would much rather a kick to your hand than my kidney, believe me.”

Harry leaned down to kiss the tip of Louis’ nose, and though he wrinkled it in indignation, he allowed himself to lean heavily into Harry’s body and Harry suddenly felt horribly selfish for dragging him out tonight. “Do you want to go back and lie down in the green room until our set is over? You wouldn’t be missing anything – you’ve seen us do the rest of the songs a hundred times.” Harry felt a drowsy nod against his chest and he kissed the crown of Louis’ head. “Alright, I’ll come join you when we’re done. So long as you don’t go wandering off before then.”

Louis snorted. “Not gonna be a problem – can’t even get up off the couch by myself anymore.”

They were just getting to the high octane bridge when Louis was led back inside and he could literally feel the magnitude of sound waves passing through his bones as the drums and bass amped up. Harry had been guiding him toward a little door to the side of the stage, but Louis practically shoved him back into the spotlight because this part wouldn’t be nearly as incredible without his insane high notes and rock and roll scream to propel the song back into the chorus.

Without missing a beat, Harry exploded back into his part and front-man position like it had been a dramatic lead-up that they’d planned all along. There were literal whistles and whoops from some of the more enthusiastic fans.

Louis watched as Harry paraded around the stage, his horrible dance moves offset by the sexy smirk and confident don’t-give-a-fuck attitude. The previously docile crowd was now packed tightly at the base of the stage, jumping up and down excitedly and reaching their hands toward the band, and it was like Louis was seeing a tiny glimpse of the future.

If Louis thought about it too long, he would begin to wonder what kind of future he and Harry could have possibly had together, even if there wasn’t a baby involved. Like, one day Harry would be traveling on world tours and going to award shows and buying multiple million dollar mansions. And all Louis wanted a quiet life where he could focus on his work and be near his family.

For all these months, Louis had thought the thing he regretted most was the timing of it all. That if only Harry had walked into that diner just a few years later, after Louis had finished school and gotten settled in his own research lab, they could have dated properly and gotten married and started a family and lived happily ever after. But now… now Louis was fairly certain that their paths would never have even crossed a few years down the road – their lives would have been too different, their futures too set.

Louis was suddenly very aware of the brevity of their time together before their fates inevitably diverged, and he wasn’t sure whether it made him want to cut and run or cling to Harry and never let go.

***

Louis was pretty sure the band’s set was only supposed to be an hour. Maybe, upon insistence from the crowd, they might have been allowed to push it for another half hour or so, but Louis had been lying on the couch in the room behind the stage long enough to have taken a nap, eaten a snack, scrolled through every social media app he had, and then take a second nap.

If he wasn’t so damn comfortable, he might have had a mind to go out and make sure everyone was still alive out there.

Sometime well after midnight the band burst back into the small room, clearly buzzing, and despite being half asleep and having no intention of leaving his comfy spot, Louis still somehow ended up on his feet and in Harry’s arms.

“Sorry we were out there so long,” Harry said, nuzzling into Louis’ hair.

“Wha’ happened?” Louis mumbled into his shirt, unable to ascertain the reason for all the excitement through the incoherent exclamations going on around him.

“Let’s just say there’s a reason so many bands get discovered when they play here,” he said cryptically.

“You… got discovered?” Louis wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but it made his heart squeeze uncomfortably.

“Hell yeah!” Niall yelled, giving Harry a fist bump and downing the remainder of the pint in his hand in one gulp.

“Well, not exactly,” Harry clarified. “There was a label rep in the audience. He, ehm, wanted to buy our song.” He didn’t need to explain which one.

“Yeah, and Harold told ‘em to fuck off,” Niall cackled as Louis went wide-eyed.

“You _what_?” Then why the hell were they all grinning like idiots?

Harry shrugged. “Told him I didn’t want anyone else performing our songs.” He leaned down and brushed his lips across Louis’ cheek. “ _Your_ song.”

Louis took a moment to process this information and then cleared his throat. “Is this how fledgling artists usually negotiate?”

“Dunno. But they did counter-offer to let us go into their studio to record out own demo of the songs instead.”

“Yer leaving out the best part.” Niall rolled his eyes at his best friend’s insistence on humility. “If everything goes well, they might even decide to sign us.”

Louis’ head was spinning. It was everything Harry wanted and it was all happening so fast. “That’s unbelievable,” he managed – it was the truth – and stood up on his tiptoes to wrap his arms around Harry’s neck. 

Normally Harry would have easily been able to see through Louis’ forced enthusiasm, but he probably just couldn’t see past his own. His hands automatically went to Louis’ tummy and maybe it was the shock of adrenaline pumping through Louis’ bloodstream but suddenly there was a hard kick to the wall of his abdomen and Harry’s eyes, already wide with excitement, filled with tears.

“Was that—“

“Did you feel that?” Louis asked, to which Harry nodded. “Yep, that was definitely a foot.”

Harry leaned down to kiss Louis long and deep, but pulled back when he felt another wave of movement under his hand. “Oh, Lou,” he cooed, giving Louis another quick peck on the lips before crouching down to be at eye level with Louis’ naval. “Nice to finally meet you.” Another nudge against his palm. “Yeah, you’re just as excited about it as daddy is, aren’t you?”

It was a good thing Harry was still knelt down on the floor because Louis couldn’t stop what was surely an agonized expression from crossing his face. 

_Daddy._

Harry had said it so easily, so casually, and it did funny things to Louis’ head and his heart. He had never really allowed himself to see himself that way, as a father to this baby – mostly because he’d probably never be able to un-see himself in that role. Maybe Harry always had.

When Harry popped back up, he noticed the strange expression on Louis’ face. “What?”

“Nothing.” Louis physically shook himself out of his thoughts of the future and focused instead on the present moment – this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and he was genuinely happy for Harry and the boys. “Just proud of you. You deserve this,” he said, smiling and choosing to ignore the rising panic in his chest.


	13. For The Best

“This is so stupid,” Louis whisper-shouted to Harry – they had completed all the actual educational parts of their childbirth education classes and had now moved on to role playing labor and birth scenarios. Louis had been ‘laboring’ in a bunch of different positions for about half an hour now and he just really did not see the point. “I feel ridiculous!”

Harry helped Louis to the floor and then sat down behind him, legs in a wide V. When Louis didn’t slide back into position, Harry rolled his eyes and scooted forward, pulling him back against his chest with perhaps a little more force than necessary. “It’s practice – you can’t convince a musician that it’s a bad idea to rehearse.” When Louis craned his neck uncomfortably around just to give him a scowl, Harry returned it with an easy smile. “Pretend to push now, love.”

“Maybe my body’s not _ready_ to pretend push yet,” he grumbled, echoing the new-age wisdom of their instructor.

“Pull your knees back some,” Harry instructed, ignoring the snarkiness. In response, Louis flattened his legs completely. Little shit. “Lou—“

“In case you haven’t noticed, my stomach is currently the size of a small planet. My knees can only go up so far.”

Harry rested his chin on Louis’ shoulder and began kneading his hands into Louis’ constantly aching lower back. “Please? Otherwise I’m gonna look like a terrible coach.”

Louis scoffed, but bent his knees and pulled them back toward his chest. Harry counted him down, then instructed him to relax and take a deep breath, then began counting again. 

Once they had accomplished several rounds without another act of rebellion, Harry hugged Louis closer and kissed him on the cheek. “Proud of you,” he whispered.

“See? Now that’s exactly the type of support that will be needed in the delivery room,” their instructor praised. “Good job, you two.”

Harry beamed with pride, but Louis just rolled his eyes – he didn’t recall the actual birth videos they’d watched in an earlier class being quite this calm or quiet.

“Now, once you get through all that…” The instructor paused for dramatic effect. “Then comes the hard part.” There were more than a few chuckles, but Louis just shifted uncomfortably. “Don’t get me wrong, giving birth is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. But then, you have to be a parent. You will be exhausted and frustrated and terrified and covered in more types of bodily fluids than you even knew existed… and you won’t give a shit about any of that,” another round of laughter, “because even though it is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do, it is also, without a doubt, the best, most rewarding thing you will ever do.”

Louis had been digging his fingers into his thighs – all semblance of the comfort and relaxation that he had just practiced having disappeared – and as soon as the instructor started passing out practice baby dolls for the newborn care portion of the class, he high-tailed it to the exit.

He made it all the way outside the building before realizing that Harry had been following him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and Louis just shook his head. “Are you okay?”

“Ehm, sorry, yeah,” Louis said, even though he shook his head again. “M’fine. Just… we learned what we needed to, yeah? Don’t really need the other stuff.”

There was a long pause, during which time Louis was able to take a few deep breaths and clear his head – and realize his mistake.

“What do you mean we don’t really need it?”

Louis bit his lip and put his hands up in defense. “I mean- I meant _I_ don’t really need it. Like, I already know how to hold a bottle and change a diaper.” 

It was a thin lie, and Harry was having none of it. “You _meant_ that we’ll never have to prepare for what happens after the baby gets here because you never really intended to keep up your end of the bargain.”

“I did. I do!” At least… well, he wanted to. “I’m trying.”

“You’re not trying, you’re running.”

“Haven’t been able to run for months,” Louis joked, but it fell flat.

Maybe Louis was running. Maybe he had started running years ago and had just never stopped. Maybe he had to run to keep from getting swept away by grief and terror and longing. Maybe running kept him moving forward instead of staying stuck in the past.

And maybe running was the only way Louis knew how to survive something like this with any of the pieces of his heart still intact.

Harry crossed his arms over his chest to keep from reaching out to Louis, to erase some of the sadness in his eyes. “The class isn’t over yet.”

Louis could see the other couples through the large glass windows, how they gazed down at their little plastic stand-ins and each other with this sort of dreamy adoration, and Louis knew himself well enough to know that he was not strong enough to see that look on Harry’s face without giving him everything he was asking for. “I can’t go back in there,” he whispered honestly.

Harry released a very long, very pained sigh – he couldn’t very well force Louis to go back inside. “Okay.”

That felt too easy. “Okay?”

“Yes, okay. You don’t have to go back in, but that doesn’t mean I’m not.”

Louis stared down at the ground and kicked at a weed that was growing through a crack in the concrete. “Do you want me to wait for you?”

“You can do whatever you want to do.” It was what he was going to do anyway.

If Louis was less proud – or, possibly, less ashamed of himself – he might have just sat outside and stewed over his words until the class was over and then be ready with an apology. Instead, he waddled himself over to the nearest bus stop and made his way downtown to the adoption agency – they had an appointment there later anyway.

“You’re early,” Eric commented when he saw Louis sitting in the waiting area.

Louis looked him up and down – Eric really did look like he could have just walked right off of a magazine page selling ‘business casual’ attire, like he was just a little too pressed and manicured to have actually been working. “Ehm, yeah. Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s perfectly fine.” Eric smiled, and of course he had a mouth full of straight white model teeth. “But perhaps you’d be more comfortable on the couch in my office?”

“I don’t want to bother you.”

Eric waved him off. “No bother. I won’t even be in there – meetings and such, you know.”

“M’fine.” Even as he said it, his back protested the assertion.

“Are you sure? The Stantons aren’t supposed to be here for at least another hour.”

That was a long time for Louis to be sitting anywhere, and suddenly he longed for those silly birth positions they’d practiced in class that at least took the pressure off his lower back. Eventually, Louis hung his head and lifted his arms out in front of him in surrender. “Alright, help me up.”

“I thought Harry was coming as well,” Eric commented casually, pulling Louis to his feet.

There was a question hidden in the statement, and Louis wasn’t quite sure how to answer it. That morning, Louis would have been sure that Harry would show up for something as important as meeting the potential parents of their child even if they were in a bit of a tiff. Now he wasn’t even sure Harry would be willing to discuss it.

When Louis didn’t answer, Eric simply said, “If I see him, I’ll point him your way.”

Though Louis had been determined not to be the first one to break, but about 10 minutes before the first appointment he finally broke down and texted Harry.

_Our meetings with the parents start in 10 – are you coming?_

The reply came back almost instantly. _You already know who I’d pick._

Louis actually growled in frustration and considered throwing his phone at the wall. But the anger only lasted a moment before the full weight of the responsibility of this decision settled onto his shoulders. He could be mad at Harry later for making him do this alone; right now he needed to try and keep his head clear of unhelpful emotions and focus rationally on which family could best provide for his child.

There were four files that he and Harry – well, mostly just Louis – had chosen to actually meet in person. To give enough time to get a feel for each other, but not so much as to make anyone uncomfortable, Louis was scheduled to meet-n-greet with each couple for about 30 minutes.

The first couple, the Stantons, were… bland. There was nothing wrong with them, exactly, but nothing extraordinary either. There was very little passion when they spoke about anything – their careers, their home, their families – and the half hour dragged on for an eternity.

The second couple was almost worse. Even though Louis would be the one giving up his baby, he felt like the one being interrogated. Did he play sports? What was his IQ? What was his family’s medical history? What about the other father? It felt like they were searching for a particular genetic specimen rather than trying to adopt a child.

The third couple was actually alright, but… well, they already had three kids. They couldn’t have any more due to medical complications, any maybe that would make them better parents to his baby, but there was still nothing about them that flipped the switch in his brain that said ‘yes, these are the ones’. And since there was no one else with whom he could discuss his reservations, he would have to trust his gut.

Louis wasn’t sure he had it in him to endlessly dissect another limited interaction with another set of strangers, but then he sensed another presence in the room and figured he was already too late to cancel with the fourth couple.

“You look exhausted, sweetie,” the woman said, taking the seat next to him and putting a comforting hand on his forearm. “Why don’t we reschedule for some other time?”

Louis studied her skeptically, but she seemed sincere in her concern for his wellbeing. “Bakers?” he asked, looking between her and the man standing next to her. They nodded. “M’already here,” he sighed. “Might as well.”

“Can I at least get you some water or something,” she insisted, her hands fluttering around him helplessly as her husband took as seat on his other side.

Louis actually found it quite endearing, and it reminded him of the way Anne had fussed over him in her kitchen. “That… would be lovely, actually.”

George and Eileen Baker were a bit of an older couple, but really that just gave them a leg up in terms of financial stability. Eileen was a bona fide artist, which allowed her to be at home most of the time but also travel to galleries around the world for exhibitions of her work. George Baker was a literal baker, and Louis knew Harry would have been endlessly amused by the coincidence – if he had bothered to show up. They had a large house in the countryside, but were just a short drive from George’s large family in the city, where they went almost weekly either for dinner or to catch a football match.

They were warm and kind and funny and content, somehow both seeking more and the best out of life while still being grateful for what they already had. They were the type of people that would raise a child with love and culture and opportunity and Louis stayed chatting with them for twice as long as he was supposed to and suddenly Louis knew – they were the ones.

Louis took back up his position on the couch in Eric’s office, who allowed him to stay as long as he needed to process the decision while the paperwork was drawn up. It all seemed to be happening so fast, but since Louis was only a few weeks shy of being full-term Eric wanted to go ahead and get the ball rolling.

Louis thumbed through the freshly printed papers numbly, reading and re-reading the same pages and fiddling with the little tab markers that indicated where signatures were needed.

It was dark by the time Louis was satisfied with the contract that had been drawn up, and though Eric had offered to drive him home, Louis chose to take the bus. 

He had been having some mild Braxton Hicks contractions on and off for several weeks, but his body had gotten used to being driven around everywhere and now the extra walking was making them worse. Which was why, even though the rational side of him knew they were harmless, he skipped the first bus that came and waited for the one that would drop him off closer to Harry’s flat. 

Looking for a distraction from the wait – and the periodic spasms of his stomach – he scrolled through the new emails on his phone. At the top of the list, having come in within just the last few hours, was one from the school’s Biomedical Research Department. Ironically, with everything else going on, Louis had very nearly forgotten about the very thing he was fighting for.

He opened the message and his breath caught – he had been chosen for Dr. Blake’s internship.

It should have been a happy moment. Everything was finally and for once working out the way he’d planned – Harry was getting recognized for his music, Louis was sprinting toward his career goals, and he had found parents that would provide an amazing life for this baby.

Instead he was just… resigned. Because he knew all this ‘good news’ would only cause another fight. He had almost decided to switch lines in the middle of his journey and head home instead when his abdomen tightened painfully, enough to steal the breath from his lungs, and decided that he was more terrified of being without Harry than being with him.

Knocking on Harry’s door felt a bit odd – it had practically been his second home for the better part of a year – but when Harry answered the door, still obviously upset, he was glad he did.

“You didn’t come to the appointment,” Louis blurted out, and- shit, that was so not the right thing to say.

Harry’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t come to the last half of the class.”

Louis took a deep breath and put a supportive hand at the base of his sizeable midsection. “That’s… fair.”

Harry waited, but there was no apology forthcoming. “Why are you here, Lou?” he asked, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe.

“I—“ In that moment, Louis felt so needy. When had he become so dependent on another person? “Here.” He fished out the adoption papers and handed them over to Harry. “I picked a couple.”

Harry’s eyes glanced over the sheets in his hand and his voice turned cold. “This is why you came? To tell me you’ve decided to sign our child’s life away to someone else?”

“I haven’t signed it yet,” Louis mumbled, unsure whether Harry could hear him. And no, that was not why he was there. But Harry was looking at him like he… well, like he was taking his child away from him. And it was selfish of him to expect Harry to be the kind, supportive partner he’d been during the class just because that’s who Louis needed him to be in this moment. “I should go,” he said hastily, turning his back on Harry’s scowl.

Harry watched as Louis shuffled back down the hallway toward the elevator. But then he stopped suddenly and sort of hunched over, throwing one hand out against the wall to brace himself and wrapping the other around his midsection.

“Louis!” Harry called, his long legs easily bounding over the short distance between them. All anger quickly evaporated and his tone softened when he saw the look of pain on Louis’ face. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Louis shook his head, but his harsh breathing and scrunched up face indicated otherwise and Harry clearly didn’t buy it. “Just… just some contractions.”

“ _What_?” Harry took a few involuntary steps back like Louis was a bomb that could explode any second. Once over the shock, he crowded into Louis’ space and added his hands to the one Louis had on his stomach.

“Not the real kind,” he said quickly, waving Harry off with more confidence than he felt.

“Looks pretty real to me.”

They felt pretty damn real too. “M’fine.” When Harry still looked unconvinced, he added, “I’ll go see the midwife in the morning, if there’s even anything still to see her about.”

“You’re not supposed to be due for another six weeks – we’re going to the hospital.” His voice was still soft, reassuring, but it held a note of authority – this was not up for discussion. “Now.”

Louis and Harry didn’t say much in the car on the way over. When their mutual silence continued in the waiting room as they filled out paperwork – and then in the exam room before the doctor came in – Louis supposed they were still angry at each other but had established a temporary truce for the sake of their child.

A nurse wrote up his intake information and performed an internal exam. She informed them that despite the frequent contractions, Louis wasn’t dilating and therefore probably not in labor. Their relief was short-lived, though, when she also determined that fetal response was a bit sluggish.

“Nothing to be too worried about,” she assured them. “Probably still lulled to sleep from all that walking you did today.”

“What if it’s not that?” Louis asked, and Harry gripped his hand tighter.

“Could be lots of things – best not to speculate until we know for sure. I’m gonna get you a glass of orange juice, see if we can’t perk the little one up a bit.”

About 15 minutes after Louis finished his drink – well, his second drink; the first he chugged so quickly that it came right back up again – there was still no increase in movement and they wheeled in an ultrasound machine.

“All your other measurements look right on track, so this is just a precautionary measure.” She squirted some gel onto Louis’ tummy and waved the wand around a little bit and the accompanying screen flickered to life. After a few minutes of meandering around his womb, she turned to them and smiled. “Looking good, boys – no sign of any complications or distress.”

“Just sleepy, then?” Harry asked, seeking explicit confirmation.

She glanced back at the screen, then laughed. “I would say so – look, she’s even yawning!”

“ _She_?” Louis choked out.

When the nurse looked back to see their matching shocked expressions, she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh no, did I- I mean… you didn’t- did you—“

“We… hadn’t found out the gender,” Harry supplied in answer to her stuttering questions.

“I am so sorry, I- I should have asked. I should have—“

“It’s alright. Would’ve found out soon enough anyway.” Harry noticed that Louis was looking at him like he’d grown a second head. “What? We would have.”

Harry and the nurse kept chattering on between them, but Louis had stopped listening because suddenly the little flutters and rolls in his stomach seemed like the actions of a real person and he could see… everything. He could see himself cheering like a madman from the stands at her football games. He could see his sisters dressing her up in adorable holiday dresses that she’d only wear once. He could see her sitting in Harry’s lap with his guitar in front of them as he positioned her little fingers on the strings. In an instant, he could see a lifetime of memories that he could have, and it would be a _good life_.

But it wasn’t his. It wasn’t the one he’d chosen for himself, and it wasn’t the one Harry had always dreamed of. And it left an aching in the place of his worry now that he knew the baby – their daughter – was okay.

Harry was much more talkative after they were released with nothing more severe than a suggestion to take it easy over the next few weeks. “Maybe you should stay over at mine tonight. My bed is bigger. And softer. And overall just seems to do better on your back, yeah?”

Louis hummed in agreement, but didn’t say much else until they got back into Harry’s flat. They stood together awkwardly in the living room, neither quite sure what to say to each other after everything that had happened that day.

“I got accepted to that internship next year,” Louis finally said, and the glow in Harry’s face dimmed just a little.

“That’s great, Lou. You deserve it.”

“And… your session at the studio is still on for next week?” Louis was trying to remind him of what was instead of what could be, but apparently Harry’s head was too far in the clouds to notice.

“So long as you can keep from going into labor before then, yeah,” he teased lightly.

The fact that that could very well happen did little to quell Louis’ rising anxiety. “Right. Good.”

Louis wandered back into Harry’s bedroom to get changed for the night. He hadn’t known he’d be staying over and thus didn’t have anything acceptable to sleep in, and ended up rummaging fairly deeply into Harry’s drawers to try and find something that would accommodate his considerable girth. But he was brought up short when he grabbed onto a tiny article of clothing that was too small for any adult to wear.

He pulled the little newborn outfit out slowly and laid it out over top of the mess he’d made of Harry’s previously folded shirts. It was black with small cartoon instruments printed on the background and gold lettering on the front that read “DADDY’S #1 FAN”.

Something in Louis snapped. Devastation cracked open a rift in his heart, but it was quickly filled, buried under mountains of anger and resentment because he shouldn’t feel so guilty about his decision, but it was eating him up inside. And clearly it was all Harry’s fault.

“What is this?” Louis asked, returning to the other room and tossing the offending article at Harry.

Harry shrugged. “A gift from Niall.”

“Do you have other baby stuff hidden away around here too?”

Harry stared at Louis’ seething form and debated about whether or not to tell the truth. “A few things here and there,” he replied honestly.

Louis’ eyes flitted around the small apartment suspiciously. “So when you accused me of already having made up my mind about the baby, you had already done the same thing.”

“No, because I don’t have that fucking privilege!” Harry spun around for a second to take a steadying breath and run a hand through his hair – maybe tugging at the roots with a little more force than necessary – before turning back to face Louis more calmly. “Look, I have tried to keep an open mind because it is your body and your life and your right, but god, I have never not wanted this with you.”

Of course Louis knew that Harry _thought_ he wanted this, but he was seeing through rose-colored glasses again. “What about the demo? What if they want to sign you? What if this is your one chance to be a writing, touring, performing musician?”

“That’s a lot of speculating for someone who seems so damn sure of the future all the time.”

Louis suppressed a bitter laugh – maybe he used to be, but he was never sure of anything anymore. “You know what I mean. Having a baby could fuck everything up and you deserve so much more than that.”

Harry was close to tearing his hair out – he felt like they’d had this argument a thousand times already. “I don’t know what’s going to happen with the music. We could go on to sell millions of records, or we could just as easily end up playing in pubs and clubs our whole lives. We could have one hit single and then end up washed up and unsellable. We could write for other people or we could get in a massive fight and never play together again. Or any of a thousand other things could happen because I can’t fucking control that either! But this? Us? This I can choose for myself.”

Louis couldn’t understand why he would possibly put his entire future at risk for him. “But… why?”

“Because—“ Harry let out a harsh breath and threw his hands up in the air, exasperated. “Because I love you! Fuck, I love you so much. You and our daughter.”

Louis was already shaking his head. “You don’t mean that.”

“Yes I fucking do. I’ve known it for a long time, and I didn’t want to put any pressure on you, but yeah, fuck it. I want you, and I want this baby. I want us to be a family.”

Although Louis couldn’t look directly at him, he could feel the intensity of Harry’s eyes on him. “I can’t,” he whispered.

“Can’t, or won’t? Because this is a choice, Louis. You can choose us. And if you do, I can promise to be there for both of you for as long as I’m alive.” He paused, almost wishing that Louis would interject with something right there. But he didn’t. “Please say something.”

Even if Louis could describe how much this was ripping him to pieces, Harry wouldn’t understand. He couldn’t, because he had never felt the devastation of a disease that was as merciless as it was unexpected. Just a few years ago, Louis took for granted that his mother’s presence in his future would be a given. The only dream he had left that still included her was defeating the thing that had taken her from him in the first place. 

“What if the person who was supposed to have already cured cancer had gotten knocked up too soon as well?”

“What?” Harry asked, genuinely confused by the change in topic.

“That could be me, Haz. I could be that person for someone else so that they don’t have to lose their mother too. I need to do this. I need to do this for her.”

“I know. But you don’t have to sacrifice happiness in order to seek fulfillment.” Harry stared at him for a long time, searching for some weak spot in the walls he had built around his heart and finding none. “Wouldn’t she would also want you to be happy?” he finally said. They both knew she would, so when Louis didn’t respond, he asked quietly, “Do I not make you happy?” There was no anger left in him, just despair. And maybe a little fear.

“I… don’t know if I ever learned how to be happy again.” Louis tilted his face up and Harry bent down to rest his forehead on Louis’. “But if I did, being with you was the closest thing I ever came to it.”

Harry lifted his hands and used his thumbs to trace the outlines of Louis’ cheekbones, still sharp despite the slight fullness in his face. “Why does it sound like you’re saying goodbye?”

“Because it’s probably best if I don’t stay here tonight,” he said, even though they both knew it was more than that.

“Please don’t go.”

“It’s for the best,” Louis sighed. He was always trying to do what was for the fucking best.

“You’re not going to change your mind.”

It was more of a statement than a question, but Louis shook his head anyway. Harry looked up to the ceiling and pulled Louis into his arms, holding him a little too tightly for a second too long before disappearing from sight. He came back a few minutes later holding a stack of papers, and Louis didn’t have to look at them to know they were the adoption papers he’d given him earlier – and they were signed.

Harry placed the documents in Louis’ hands and then knelt down. He pressed his lips to the crest of Louis’ belly and whispered a silent apology to his daughter – he had done everything he could to keep them together but it wasn’t enough, and she deserved the best life he could give her. Even if it wasn’t with him. When he rose, there were tears in his eyes, and that made his resigned smile all the more heartbreaking. “For the best.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WAIT. FOR. IT.


	14. helloiloveyougoodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how did this chapter get so long??

Harry made several attempts to reach out over the next few weeks – sending Louis pictures from the recording studio or texting him some corny joke that he’d heard on the radio. But Louis made it a point not to respond. Part of it was just that he was genuinely busy, having arranged to take all his exams early on the off chance that the baby came sooner than expected. Most of it, though, was that every time he was around Harry he ended up confused or angry or hurt.

In some ways it was easier. Louis was able to focus on all the things he needed to get done without a mess of emotions getting in the way. Study. Pass organic chem. Clean out his desk at the tutoring center. Quit his job at the financial firm.

That last one actually ended up being harder than he expected it to be. His usually stoic, borderline-angry boss actually pulled him into a hug and sort of begged him not to leave. Well, his exact words were, “You mean I’m going to have to rely on Sam to run my projections now?”, but Louis knew what he meant. But after a long-suffering sigh, Mr. Anderson had accepted the resignation with a promise to come visit him and the ‘little assistant stealer’ in the hospital, which would have made Louis feel awkward if he thought there was any chance his boss would actually show up there.

Mary had already agreed to keep Louis on the schedule for as long as he felt up to working, so that only left one more task to check off his list.

Louis stood outside the door to the adoption agency for several minutes before working up the nerve to go inside. Then in the waiting room, his hands were shaking so badly that the papers nearly fell to the ground and Louis was beginning to doubt that he could do this.

But then his phone buzzed with another text from Harry. It was an audio clip, and when Louis played it his eyes filled with tears. It was the song Harry had written for him, but it was more—just… _more_. Harry must have been so close to the microphone – you could hear all the textures in his voice, every breath, even the sound of his lips parting – and it really felt like you were alone in the room with him while he poured out all the pieces of his heart to you. It was magical, and Louis knew in his bones that it was only a matter of time before the whole world would be picking up those pieces.

When Louis was called into Eric’s office, he was reluctant to take the signed contract from Louis with the moisture still fresh on his cheeks. And Louis was just as reluctant to hand them over.

“The Bakers are going to be amazing parents,” Louis said, as much to himself as to the case worker as he stared down at the folder in his hands.

“You wouldn’t have chosen them otherwise.” Louis nodded, but still made no move to give him the documents and Eric had been doing this long enough to sense that Louis’ hesitation might be more than just the normal wariness over making a life-changing decision. “You know, just because the papers are signed doesn’t mean anything is final yet.”

“What?” Louis said, backing away and clutching the folder to his chest as if it could shield his heart from whatever Eric was about to say.

“Even if I file those, you have up to 30 days after the birth to change your mind.”

Louis shook his head – he didn’t want to change his mind, and he didn’t want to know he _could_ change his mind.

“Or I could wait to file them until the baby’s born, see how you feel then?” Louis looked like he was in the middle of a fight-or-flight response and Eric tried to explain his reasoning. “I’m not trying to sway you one way or another, but it is much less painful for all involved if you stick to a decision, whichever it is. As I said at the start, I’m only trying to do what’s best for everyone.”

Having his own words thrown back at him made Louis realize just how annoying and unhelpful they were and he slapped the stack of papers onto Eric’s desk. “Fine. Someone else can determine what’s best for everyone for a change then.”

As Louis stormed out of his office, Eric decided that he was definitely going to wait to process this paperwork.

***

Louis worked for as long as he was physically able – it was a nice distraction from the melancholy that seemed to have settled over his disposition. He even forced a smile firmly on his face when he started having contractions in the middle of his morning shift at the diner. It wasn’t until the tightening in his abdomen very nearly caused him to drop the full tray of drinks he was carrying that Mary kicked him out with strict instructions to go home and rest while he still could.

Though she’d offered to drive him home, Louis followed the same routine developed when he’d stopped letting Harry chauffeur him everywhere. He walked – waddled – to the bus stop a couple blocks down the street, changed lines in the center of town, and got off at the stop closest to his neighborhood. Normally at this point he would have called Lottie or Dan to come pick him up, but it was much earlier than he would usually be there and no one was home yet.

When Louis finally came huffing and puffing through the door and plopped down on the couch in the quiet stillness, he rather wished he’d just stayed at work. He tried everything to distract himself from both his thoughts and the steadily increasing pain coursing through his body. He pre-prepared a casserole that would be easy for his family to just pop into the oven under the assumption that he would probably not be around to make dinner later. He got a head start on the readings Dr. Blake had assigned him to read and write synopses of before the internship in the fall.

He probably should have called the adoption agency to let them know what was happening. He probably also should have called Harry, but the last time he’d had contractions Harry had made him go to the hospital and there was still every chance that this wasn’t the real thing and he wouldn’t want to be the boy who cried labor.

It became a little more difficult to continue convincing himself of this when the entirety of his family arrived home just as a particularly strong contraction had him doubled over in pain and they all swarmed around him in one stiflingly concerned horde.

“Louis!” Dan said in both surprise and alarm. It only took a second for him to realize what must be happening – it hadn’t been all that long since he’d been through it with Jo – and pressed his hand into Louis’ lower back to try and help ease some of the pressure there. “It’s okay. Breathe, just breathe.”

“What’s going on?” Lottie asked, elbowing her younger but taller sisters out of the way to get eyes on the situation. “Shit, Lou.” She leaned down to get a better look at her brother; the sadness and pain etched in his face broke her heart. “Are you okay?”

Louis blew out a harsh breath and, with some assistance, stood back up to his full height. “M’fine. Mary was fussin’ and sent me home. It’s nothing.”

“You should have called,” Dan admonished gently.

Louis waved off their concern dismissively. “It’s early stages yet – probably a false alarm anyway. No point in bringing everybody back just to sit around and wait to see if anything happens.”

“Agreed,” Daisy and Phoebe said in unison, earning them each an elbow from Fizzy.

“We could have been here with you,” Lottie insisted.

Dan leaned in closer and added in a hushed tone, “You don’t have to do this alone, Louis.”

Louis’ jaw clamped shut and he looked up to the ceiling when his eyes began to sting because yes, he did have to do this alone – this was his mistake, his choice, and he was the one who would have to suffer the consequences.

“Wait, where’s Harry?” Lottie asked, suddenly realizing the Louis really _shouldn’t_ have been alone. “Why isn’t he here?”

“Because he doesn’t want to be here.” Or because Louis didn’t want him to be there. “He doesn’t want any part of what’s about to happen.” Louis didn’t particularly want it either, but he had no choice – at least he could spare Harry this particular torment.

“Should we take him to the hospital?” Lottie asked Dan directly, effectively cutting Louis out of the conversation completely and giving his emotions just enough fuel to turn his mounting sorrow to anger.

“This is exactly why I didn’t want to call you.” Louis took turns glaring at each member of his family – okay, maybe not Ernest and Doris; they didn’t really have any say in this – but settled his steely gaze on his oldest sister. “I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions regarding my health, so if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll be more comfortable contracting in my room. Alone.”

Louis didn’t wait for a response before barging through the human barricade that surrounded him, and though his movements were slow and stilted and any one of his family members could have easily cut him off at the pass, they let him have his way. Although once he had closed himself off in his bedroom, he did notice a shadow conspicuously blocking the light in the hallway that suggested someone had camped themselves out at the base of his door.

Louis alternated between pacing and lying down on the bed. He paced during contractions because that was supposed to speed things up and they fucking hurt and all he wanted in the moment was for it all to be over with. He laid down between contractions because speeding things up meant the sooner this was over with and the sooner he’d have to face what was on the other side of it. 

He wanted both, and he wanted neither.

So he walked and reclined. Walked, reclined. Over and over, all while dutifully timing the duration and spacing of his contractions in the app he’d downloaded on his phone. He tried to make as little noise as possible – not wanting to give anyone an excuse for constantly checking up on him – but when his contractions were somewhere around the seven minute mark, he couldn’t help the soft groans his throat was producing on its own.

There was a shuffling sound in the hallway and the door opened a crack. Louis craned his neck around from his side-lying position on the bed and saw Lottie poking her head in a little sheepishly, a question in her eyes. He huffed out a breath and returned to his previous position, and because he didn’t expressly tell her off, she took that as an invitation into the room.

Not wanting to further upset her brother, Lottie didn’t say anything as she sat beside him on the bed. Instead, she carded her fingers through his hair and hummed the lullaby their mum used to sing to them and took command of timing duties with his phone, which had at some point gotten kicked off the bed and forgotten.

Dan popped his head in more than a few times to see how things were going, but Lottie waved him off for fear that Louis would end up kicking both of them out. But she needn’t have worried – Louis ended up in more than one of those labor positions they’d practiced during the birthing class, and if they had been difficult to get into before, they were nearly impossible for him to maintain by himself with the waves of pain rolling through him.

It was dark outside by the time his contractions had narrowed to five minutes apart, at which point an alert chimed on his phone. Now that Louis had reached this milestone, the app told them it was now highly unlikely that this was false labor and that it was probably time to head to the hospital if they’d not already done so.

They both saw the notification, but instead of spurring him into action, Louis burrowed his face deeper into his pillow and curled tighter in on himself.

“Lou—“

“I didn’t let _you_ tell me when I should go to the hospital, so I’m certainly not listening to a fucking app,” Louis grumbled, knocking the phone out of Lottie’s hand and ignoring the panic rising in his chest.

“Louis it’s time,” Lottie sighed sympathetically. “The baby’s coming whether you go to the hospital or not.” 

Of course Louis knew that – he wasn’t a fucking idiot. Instead of dignifying her remark with a response, he did what he’d always had to do to be strong – he slammed the door shut on emotions he couldn’t control, and instead focused on the tasks that needed to get done.

Louis got to his feet and changed out of the clothes he’d gone to work in – they were just going to get him undressed again at the hospital, but the faint smell of coffee and bacon grease wafting from them in the small confines of the car would likely make him nauseous. He gathered up the bag he’d packed for his hospital stay as well as a few other non-essential items from around the room he’d been utilizing for the past several hours and decided he wasn’t ready to part with – a Bluetooth speaker, a scented candle, some fuzzy slippers.

“Are you ready?” Lottie asked gently when Louis had stopped bustling around and was instead staring blankly at the heap that had been piled up in the center of the bed because _god_ did he not know how to answer that question.

Because in so many ways… no, he was not ready. He wasn’t ready for the pain that was coming, that was already almost too much to handle. He wasn’t ready to see his daughter’s face knowing that she would never really be _his_. He wasn’t ready to go back to waiting tables and doing homework when there was a fucking _kid_ out there with his eyes and Harry’s smile. And he was sure as hell not ready to do any of that alone.

But he couldn’t stop the inevitable. He knew this was coming, and somehow he managed to hold back the tears desperate to fall down his face and gave a slow nod.

Everyone but Dan was in bed by the time Louis descended the stairs, Lottie providing support and balance with an arm slung around his waist.

“Would you mind grabbing the things we’re taking to the hospital?” she asked, trying not to sound winded with the extra weight she was bearing. “They’re on his bed.”

“Of course, whatever you need,” Dan said, ruffling Louis’ hair affectionately on his way by before disappearing up the stairs.

“’We’?” Louis questioned, cocking an eyebrow at Lottie.

“What? It’s not like you’re taking the bus, and if you want to make it before the baby’s born I wouldn’t suggest riding with Dan because he drives like a grandpa.” Grandpa. The word was out of her mouth before she could think better of it and the truth of it hit them both like a blow to the chest – yet another relationship Louis was choosing to destroy before it had even begun. “Lou, I—“

“S’fine,” he said, shaking his head – he’d have to get a better handle on his emotions if he had any intention of holding himself together. “Let’s just go.”

The drive to the hospital was quiet aside from a few sniffles and whimpers from the passenger seat, and Lottie pretended not to notice the wetness on Louis’ cheeks as he chose to clutch at the edge of his seat instead of her hand.

She continued allowing him to give her the silent treatment after they'd pulled into the parking lot and sat in the reception area and filled out the paperwork. She highly suspected that her brother would actually be stubborn enough to stay silent throughout the whole rest of the birth just to spite her, and so was surprised when he spoke first.

“Ehm, thanks for the ride, Lots. You can go on home,” he said, narrowing his eyes at the nurse insisting he sit in a wheelchair to be taken up to his room.

“I’m sorry, what?” she asked, truly taken aback.

“You got what you wanted – I’m here. Your part’s done. I’ve got it from here.” The petulance in his tone was almost enough to hide the fact that he was crumbling inside. Almost.

“Like hell you do!”

Louis glared up at her from his seat, having lost the battle with the intake nurse. “Lottie, I told you to leave. Now.”

“I’m not just gonna let you go through all of this by yourself.”

“I’m not by myself. I’ve got half a dozen doctors and nurses who’ll be lining up to get a front row view of places that I sure as hell don’t want my _sister_ seeing.”

Lottie put her hands on her hips and prepared to dig her heels in – she could be just as stubborn as Louis when the situation called for it. “Louis, that’s not—“

“I’m a big boy. I don’t need you or anyone else holding my hand through this, alright?”

Louis was avoiding eye contact, deliberately staring straight ahead of him, so Lottie knelt down until she was in his field of vision. “Please, Lou. I can help you. Let me stay?” she pleaded softly.

“I don’t- I don’t _want_ you here.” He felt guilty for the hurt that flashed across her face, but it was true. He didn’t really want to be alone, but more than that he didn’t want anyone there to see the broken shell that was sure to be left behind when he finally had to say goodbye to his baby girl. “Go home.”

Louis groaned and curled in on himself, which spurred the nurse into action. She wheeled Louis toward the elevators, offering an apologetic smile as they passed, and Lottie had the odd feeling that she was saying goodbye to her brother as she’d always known him – that the man that came back down those elevators would be fundamentally different in ways she couldn’t possibly understand. 

In fact, there was only one other person who _could_ possibly understand… and if Lottie had anything to say about it, he was going to get his ass down to the hospital right the hell now.

***

It was easy enough for Louis to distract himself while he was changed into an unflattering backless gown, an IV was placed in his arm, and multiple monitors were hooked up to various points on his body. But once the nurses were done checking his dilation – only four goddamn centimeters – and he was left alone in the dim quiet of his room, the fear and anxiety began to creep in.

He tried to busy himself with his phone, but the pressure in his pelvis was steadily increasing even as the pain from the contractions waxed and waned and soon the device required more concentration than he could spare. Instead, he placed the Bluetooth speaker by his bed, curled up on his side, and filled the room with the sounds of his mother’s favorite records. Back when it was just the two of them, they’d spent countless hours dancing and singing along to these songs together – if he couldn’t have her in the room with him, this was as close as he was going to get.

It could have been the memories floating through his head or the knowledge that he’d never get the chance to make those same memories with his own child, but it wasn’t long before the tears that had been too long trapped behind his eyes began to streak down his face. Louis heard the shuffling of feet, the scraping of a chair against the linoleum floor, but his eyes were squeezed tightly shut and he didn’t want to lose the tenuous thread he had created with his mum’s memory. It wasn’t until he felt the familiar warmth of a hand curled around his neck, the gentle brush of a thumb across his cheek that had already wiped away hundreds of his tears before, that Louis knew who was beside him.

He should have known Lottie would call Harry – Louis should have done so himself, but a part of him really did believe that Harry wouldn’t want to be there and it would be easier to face his solitude in the delivery room if Harry’s absence was a matter of ignorance rather than choice. “You don’t have to be here, Harry. My sister worries. She’s- you didn’t have to come just because she asked you to.”

“She didn’t ask me to come. She simply informed me that you were currently in the process of giving birth to our child and thought I would want to know.” Though he intended the remark in jest, Harry couldn’t quite help the slight bitterness that crept into his tone because he was glad that at least _some_ one had bothered to call him.

Louis took a deep breath and steeled himself to look directly into Harry’s eyes. “If you don’t want to be here, if it’s too hard, it’s… okay. You don’t have to be. You can go.” The words were like daggers coming up his throat, but he managed to get them out.

Harry sighed – he recognized Louis’ false bravado by now, and hated just how easy it was for him to recognize because of how many times he’d had to witness Louis put it on. “If that’s what you really want, I’ll leave. But please know that by your side is the only place I want to be right now.” When Louis’ silence continued, he added, “Wouldn’t want my excellent coaching skills to get rusty now, would I?”

Louis’s mouth twitched in the beginnings of a smile, but it was quickly replaced by a grimace as another contraction assaulted his body. Harry knelt beside him, clutching one of Louis’ hands in his while using the other to wrap around his waist and knead into his lower back, and instructed him to breathe slowly and evenly.

Louis resisted accepting Harry’s offer at first, skeptical of his impossibly endless altruism. “We shouldn’t both have to suffer,” he reasoned.

“Can’t be a tortured artist without the torture.” When Louis didn’t even crack a smile, Harry went back to retrieve the item that he’d dropped into the chair by the door when he came in. “Would it ease your suffering at all to know that I brought you this?” He held up the item and…

Louis burst into tears. It was just a pillow, but the fact that he’d brought it, without him expecting or asking him to, meant so much more than that. Because it was Louis always pushing Harry away and Harry always showing up anyway. It was Louis being closed off and distant and Harry giving him a place to be vulnerable and comforted. It was everything Louis needed, everything he had taken, and everything he could never hope to repay.

The floodgates opened and Louis couldn’t stop himself from sobbing into the pillow. Harry wasn’t sure what to do other than hold him as he cried, which only made him cry harder and Harry hold tighter.

Once Louis’ body stilled, which took the span of several contractions, Harry pulled Louis’ face from the depths of the soft material and searched his eyes deeply. “What do you want, Louis? Whatever you want from me, it’s yours.”

They both knew that he was asking about more than just this moment, but for now Louis could only ask for the only thing he knew he wanted. “Stay.”

And so he did.

Despite Louis’ rapidly shifting moods, Harry remained as sweet and tender as he’d always been. One minute Louis would be threatening to throw him out of the room, and then the next he would be clinging to him for dear life. Louis found himself apologizing often – for everything he was saying and doing in the moment and also for everything that would soon come to pass – but Harry just kissed his forehead and told him not to worry about any of that right now.

“Just get our little girl into the world,” he said. “We can sort the rest out later.”

If Harry was afraid or anxious or angry, he didn’t show it. He shifted Louis’ weight when he suddenly needed to roll over or sit up or walk around. He massaged Louis’ swollen feet and aching hips. He coached him through those ridiculous breathing exercises that really did seem to help (not to lessen the pain – god, not even an ounce – but rather to focus; to give his mind a way to measure the passing of time as a reminder that there was an end to this pain even if he couldn’t believe it in the moment). He held Louis’ hand as both a physical and emotional anchor and assured Louis, in no uncertain terms, that he could do this. That they could do this.

Several times over the next excruciating hours Louis was offered pain management options. He was obviously in agony, but each time he refused.

“Why?” Harry finally asked. There was no judgment, but he wasn’t sure how much more Louis’ body could take and he hated not being able to do a single thing about it.

If Louis had been in the middle of a contraction, he would have said that he had no fucking idea – that only a crazy person would willingly put themselves through this torture. But because he was in a moment of respite, he could speak the truth. “Because I want to feel everything. If this is the last—“ He choked on his words and looked down and placed a hand on the source of his misery. “If this is all the time I get with her, I want to experience all of it.”

“But you’re in so much pain.” To Harry, it seemed like Louis often made things more painful than they needed to be.

“I know,” Louis sighed, running his fingers through Harry’s hair. “But all pain has a purpose. It’s the way the body and the brain let each other know that something’s not right. Pain is what keeps us alive.” Well, if it didn’t kill you first. “Please? Just… help me do this?”

Harry kissed him on the tip of his nose and was pleased to see it wrinkle as expected in response. “Whatever you want.”

When Louis’ water broke, so did his resolve. The pressure in his hips increased exponentially and he begged for some sort of relief. But Harry had promised to support his original decision, not change it, and so instead suggested one of the other pain management options they’d learned about.

“Water is supposed to help?”

Louis nodded, but it could have been more out of acknowledgement than agreement. 

They had a private bathroom with a shower big enough to fit three people and the nurse helped them get situated. After several slippery mishaps, Louis ended up stark naked on one of those ridiculous giant rubber stability balls while Harry got to keep his dignity in swim trunks on a normal chair. He would have just given up on the whole idea if it wouldn’t have necessitated prolonging the embarrassment in trying to get him dried off and back to the bed.

Once they were left alone, though, it didn’t it didn’t feel awkward anymore. The water was warm and soothing and the slightest bit distracting, and Louis was reminded of the first time they showered together. He was naïve to think in that moment that what was between them could ever remain casual. Because, just as it was now, Harry’s voice – whispering words of praise and comfort and encouragement – had infused itself into the very fabric of how Louis saw the world. How he saw himself.

Once again Louis was struck by how much Harry had given him – was still giving him – and how little he gave in return. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Louis sobbed after a particularly brutal contraction, burying his face in his hands.

Harry should have reassured him that there was nothing to be sorry about. But instead he asked, “For what?”

“I’ve done nothing but break your heart.” He rested one hand on Harry’s knee and the other on his hard stomach and twisted to look at Harry and even with the water streaming down on them he could pick out the drops coming from his eyes. “I’m sorry I let myself break you.”

The next moment Louis was crying out – this time in physical pain – and dug his fingers into Harry’s thigh and the underside of his abdomen, futilely trying to relieve some of the pressure there.

Harry thought about what his life was like before all of this – a year ago, five years ago. It was easier, certainly, but less… rich. Less fulfilling. Less meaningful. His time with Louis had seen both the best and worst moments of his life. And that, he thought, was the whole point of anything worth doing.

“I would do it all again,” he confessed once Louis had released his death grip. When Louis didn’t respond, he only barely refrained from asking him if he felt the same – mostly because he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

***

Louis didn’t tell Harry when he started to feel the urge to push. He didn’t want to admit it was happening and that this was almost over, but at a certain point his body was doing it on its own anyway. Of course Harry noticed his little straining grunts and got up to call the doctor, but Louis grabbed onto his forearm and pulled him back down to his level.

“Please don’t,” he begged, voice cracking from the near constant vocalizations his throat had been making to get through the pain.

Harry’s eyes softened and he entwined their fingers together. “Have to.”

“Soon,” Louis promised, “just… not yet. Please? Can you just- just stay in here with me.” Where he could pretend that other people – doctors and professors and sisters and adoptive parents – didn’t exist. Where it was just the two of them. “Just for a little longer?”

Harry sat fully back down, wrapping his body around Louis’ back and resting his chin on his shoulder. “Okay. Just a little longer.”

Harry held him until things started escalating a nurse was drawn into the room by the sounds of Louis’ whines, experienced enough to recognize what they meant. It didn’t take much examination to discover that he was already close to crowning, and Louis felt the beginning of panic set in.

But then Harry reminded him to just take one thing at a time.

First get up.

Then walk toward the bed.

Take a break in the middle of a contraction. Try not to push.

Finish getting onto the bed and pull his knees up.

Louis’ eyes were wild and Harry took his face in his hands, forcing him to focus on just his face. “Just like you were doing before. It’s okay, you’ve got this. It’s time to bring our daughter into the world.”

Harry’s gentle coaxing worked up until the point that an ungodly burning sensation flamed to life between Louis’ legs and Harry let it slip that he could see the top of the baby’s head. All the breath went out of Louis’ lungs and any momentum he’d built up was lost. Suddenly he couldn’t control his breathing, his chest spasming erratically.

Harry tore his eyes away from where he’d caught a glimpse of a dark swath of hair and instead sat on the bed facing Louis, hip to hip, pulling him fully up and against his chest. “It’s okay. It’s just the two of us. You and me, remember?”

Louis closed his eyes and rested his forehead against Harry’s chest, trying to ignore anyone that wasn’t Harry. The angle was awkward, and the heat enveloping Louis’ already flushed face was stifling, but being fully surrounded by Harry’s presence was the only thing that gave him the strength to make it through the next few pushes and the first big hurdle.

“Head’s out!” the doctor exclaimed, as if Louis couldn’t feel every square inch that had passed through his body. “Just give me one or two more big pushes and you’ll get to meet your daughter.”

Louis let out an involuntary sob and his whole body shook uncontrollably and Harry just hugged him closer. “I can’t. I can’t do this. I can’t.” Louis couldn’t stop whispering the confession into Harry’s skin, and they both knew he wasn’t just talking about following the doctor’s instructions.

But Harry was right there, crying right along with him and responding to every one of Louis’ doubts. “You can do this. It’s going to be okay. I love you and it’s going to be okay.”

Louis didn’t believe that Harry could possibly still love him, not when he’d done nothing but push him away and break both their hearts, or that anything would ever be okay again. But he didn’t have time to argue before unwittingly giving in to his body’s demands to permanently separate him from the life he’d created.

There was a split second of unimaginable pain and then an infinite moment of quiet stillness as the newborn was placed on his chest and drew air into her untested lungs for the first time. And when that breath was released in a piercing cry everything in Louis’ body, mind, and spirit erupted into chaos. 

He had thought all the things he’d been feeling – the attachment and affection driven by hormones and biology – would diminish once he was no longer physically connected to this child, but instead they were intensified to the point that Louis didn’t even know how someone could feel feelings this strongly. It was like all his emotional nerve endings had gone numb the moment his mum had gotten sick and they were all flaring back to life at the same moment.

His brain was entirely unable to comprehend a lifetime of _helloiloveyougoodbye_ condensed into this one singular moment with this tiny angry perfect person wailing in his arms. It was too much and not enough and Louis had no idea what he wanted anymore, but he was entirely sure of what he didn’t – he didn’t want them to take his baby away from him. Not to check her out or do their tests or bathe or feed her. Certainly not to hand her over to the goddamn perfect family he’d promised her to.

The people around him might have been speaking to him, but he couldn’t hear them. Louis was hysterical, and when a pair of hands – rationally, he knew, probably only a nurse trying to help his daughter – tried to take the baby from his erratic grip, he squirmed and kicked out blindly, his vision too blurred with tears to actually aim at anything. It was only Harry’s firm hand and gentle assurance that no one was taking her right now, that the doctors needed to make sure she was okay, and the promise that he would never leave her side, that convinced Louis to release his hold on her.

When they took her from his arms – for the first time separating him from what had, in a single unexpected moment, become his whole world – Louis was sure that he’d die from the intensity of feeling that would course through him when he already felt like he could take no more without simply shutting down.

But it turned out to be the opposite. When Harry and his daughter and the pediatric nurses disappeared down the hallway, a peace that had eluded Louis for many years settled over him and he stilled in every sense of the word because the tangle of emotions finally unraveled into a single thread and he _got it_. Like the pain that his body had just endured, the pain that had been plaguing Louis’ heart since the moment he’d met Harry had been trying to tell him that something was wrong, that the decisions he was making were slowly destroying his ability to love and be loved.

Louis had had it wrong. He thought the walls he’d built around his heart would make him strong, protect him from getting hurt. But he was already hurt, and instead they had just been keeping out the very things that would heal him. Now that the dam had burst, the caged waters that had been stirring violent and restless settled into a contented spring and Louis took a deep breath, finally finding balance in a world that seemed to keep shifting beneath his feet.

The doctor looked slightly concerned at her patient’s drastic change in mood, but things seemed more clear to Louis than they had been in a very long time when he calmly told her, “I need to make a phone call.”


	15. Things I Can

Louis wasn’t sure whether he was just more exhausted than he realized or whether the doctors slipped a little something extra into his IV drip after his hysterical response to giving birth, but somehow Louis managed to fall asleep before he ever got to make his phone call. And when he woke up, it was not to Harry or his sister or even a doctor in his hospital room, but rather…

“Mr. Anderson?” Louis asked, genuinely confused as to why his former employer would be sitting by his bed at this moment. Maybe those pain meds he was on were stronger than he thought.

“Ah, Tomlinson, you’re awake. Good.” He stood up and glared down at the uncomfortable wooden chair he’d been occupying as if it had personally offended him with its poor craftsmanship.

“What are you doing here?” Or, even more curiously, “How- how did you even know I was here?”

He rocked back on his heels and put his hands in his pockets. If Louis didn’t know any better, he would say the man actually looked sheepish. “The missus is a labor and delivery nurse. She remembered you were one of mine and gave me the heads up.”

Louis vaguely remembered one time several years ago – back in his early days as an assistant when he wasn’t trusted to do much more than staple papers and fetch lunch orders – stopping by the hospital to retrieve Mrs. Anderson and drop her off at a swanky restaurant downtown for some anniversary or birthday dinner or something. His boss was infamously unsentimental, and Louis had taken it upon himself to pick up a small bouquet of flowers for her on the way. It wasn’t much, but apparently it was enough to make an impression on her.

“Oh.” Well, that explained the _how_ , but not really the _why_. “Is it- I mean, is there something urgent you needed from me? Did I forget to return my badge or something?”

“No, no, nothing like that.” Mr. Anderson’s face settled into a small scowl – most people, including his wife on more than one occasion, thought the only thing he cared about was that damn company – before softening considerably. “I just remember what it was like when Karen and I had our first. Everything is new and you’re always second-guessing yourself and there’s so many thing you didn’t even know you would have to worry about.”

This was more sentimental than Louis had ever seen his boss, and maybe it was the hormones still flooding his system, but he was pretty sure he was close to tears. “So you’re here to offer some sage words of parenting advice?”

Mr. Anderson scoffed and straightened the already perfectly unruffled hem of his suit jacket. “Hardly. My kids are wild, rotten little things – wouldn’t want yours to turn out anything like ‘em.”

Though the insults were sour, his tone was one of affection and Louis chuckled. “Alright, what then?”

“Remember when we hired you – we gave you a thousand pounds to invest however you wanted in the Stock Exchange?”

“You mean that test you gave me on my first day to see whether my financial instincts would lead me to pick companies that were going to tank in six months?” Hell yes, Louis remembered it well. It was nerve-wracking to think that his entire future employment hinged on those choices, and he’d researched everything so thoroughly that he’d begun dreaming in numbers and projection charts.

“It wasn’t a test. Well, it was a test, but the money was real. Hands-on experience is the best way to learn the industry, and I find that the outcomes are generally better when the stakes are real.”

“Holy shit. I- I’m sorry. I didn’t know- I thought it was just a simulation.” The fact that Louis had just absently spent a thousand pounds of someone else’s money on a whim made him slightly nauseous. It might not have seemed like a lot to someone like Mr. Anderson, who on a daily basis handled accounts that easily topped out at eight figures, but Louis was fairly certain his bank account had never even seen a number that required a comma. “I had no idea what I was doing.”

“Which only makes your choices that much more impressive – your money has nearly doubled every year since the initial purchase.” He rather enjoyed the look of shock on his former assistant’s face and a fond sadness he wasn’t used to feeling toward his employees overtook him. “Are you sure you don’t want to come back to work for me?”

Louis’ stomach settled and he smirked. “Hey, I’ve got no debt to work off – I made you your money back and then some.”

The wistfulness vanished, quickly overtaken by a more familiar long-suffering look that Louis often found himself being the one to put there. “You really weren’t paying any attention during onboarding, were you?”

Well, Louis had taken the job shortly after his mum was first diagnosed and only to help pay for medical expenses, so… probably a bit distracted at the time. “What do you mean?”

“Whatever money you make, you keep.”

“ _What?_ ” Louis shot to an upright position, but his entire backside immediately protested that idea and he eased himself back down slowly with a wince.

In an uncharacteristically nurturing manner, his boss fluffed and adjusted the pillows before helping him lean back into a more horizontal direction. Once Louis was resting comfortably, Mr. Anderson pulled out the envelope from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to him. “Like I said, you’re gonna have your fair share of worries over the next few months. Didn’t want money to have to be one of them.”

Louis carefully unfolded the paper and had to re-read the number a dozen times, both because his eyes were filling with tears and because he was sure he’d gotten it wrong. “There’s no way it earned this much.”

Mr. Anderson waved him off. “Eh, I threw in the initial thousand and a little extra as a going away gift. I like a good, round number,” he said by way of explanation, refusing to admit to himself that he had a soft spot for the boy – his wife would never let him hear the end of it.

Ten thousand pounds. Louis was holding _ten thousand pounds_ in his hands. He hadn’t had a chance to think through the logistics of his newly made decision. Maybe he’d been afraid to because he truly hadn’t known how or if it could possibly work. He didn’t know where she was going to sleep. He didn’t even know how he was going to get her home because he didn’t have a car seat. And once he got there, there would be no diapers or bottles or knit caps or bouncers waiting for him because no one, least of all Louis, expected him to be coming back with a baby.

And where his mind would usually jump immediately to freaking out about everything that needed to be done, instead Louis was starting out ahead of the game and it made him feel like he could finally take a deep breath.

Well, figuratively anyway. In the literal sense, he was quietly hiccupping between rounds of ugly crying. His boss paced around uncomfortably for a while, but he had never been good at dealing with emotions and so eventually left Louis with his well-wishes after supposedly seeing his wife pass by in the hall.

Once the initial overwhelm had passed, Louis pushed himself up – gingerly this time – and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Once he was upright and walking around, the soreness didn’t seem so bad, especially considering what his body had just been through. He tucked the check into his duffel bag and rummaged around until he found something to eat. He pulled out a granola bar, one of the fancy expensive ones that was unprocessed and organic and made with real fruit and Louis knew that Harry must have brought it because Louis never bought them for himself.

Newly energized by the influx of carbs, Louis ventured out of his room and down the hall. He wandered for a while before giving up his fight with the maze and asking a nurse for directions to the nursery.

Louis hovered in the doorway, brought up short by the sight before him. He really shouldn’t have been surprised to see Harry in there, sitting and rocking and just holding their daughter. He had, after all, promised not to leave her side.

Louis leaned against the doorframe, silently watching them for a few minutes. Harry’s hold on her was awkward and inexperienced and adorably gentle, the largeness of his hands exaggerated by the tininess of her body. She started fussing and Louis’ protective instincts went into overdrive, but then Harry stood up and started swaying back and forth with the consistency and precision of a choreographed dance, and that’s when Louis noticed Harry’s lips moving. He was singing, a song just for her, too soft and intimate for anyone else to hear.

It should have been a happy scene, but there was agony etched into all the features of Harry’s face. Because instead of saying hello to the daughter he’d just met, he was saying goodbye to the child he thought he was about to lose.

Louis wanted nothing more than to burst in and erase all the sadness from this moment that Harry had fought so hard for, but he couldn’t. Not yet. Not until he was 100% sure this was a sight he’d be able to walk in on at least hundred thousand more times.

***

The call to Eric Price was harder on Louis than it was on him. Louis sobbed into the phone, apologizing for wasting his time and causing everyone involved so much pain. But Eric assured him that this was not an uncommon occurrence; that no one started this process with any sort of expectations, and that he hadn’t even filed the signed paperwork, so Louis’ verbal confirmation was enough for him to simply tear up the contract.

When Louis hung up, he didn’t quite know how to feel. He knew he was responsible for another person’s life – fuck, he was a _dad_ now – but that was about all he knew. His future was now a big question mark, full of the unknown and unknowable, and the thought both thrilled and terrified him.

Louis tried to compose his thoughts before talking to Harry, but his mind kept betraying him, his anxiety-fueled imagination running a bit rampant over whatever declarations he had been planning to profess. Maybe Harry had realized how all-consuming caring newborn was and decided he didn’t want to be a father. Or maybe he loved their daughter and despised Louis for trying to take her away from him and decided he wanted to raise her on his own. Or maybe he wanted both Louis and the baby but decided that they would have to take a backseat to his blossoming music career.

Of course Louis realized that most of these thoughts were entirely irrational and unlikely, but the longer he was left alone the more insane the scenarios his mind conjured up became and eventually he called in a nurse to, perhaps a little testily, demand why his daughter still hadn’t come back to his room yet.

The nurse furrowed her brow and her eyes flicked to the door and then back to Louis. “I thought- well, your partner informed us that this was a bit of a… delicate situation. He wanted to let you rest and said that he’d handle everything else. Is that not correct?”

It was as if tension churning in Louis’ gut shot up and formed a knot in his throat because Harry still believed Louis wanted to go through with the adoption and was willing to be the one to hand their daughter over even though it would literally _kill him_ to let her go and all because he was still trying to shield Louis as much as possible from the heartbreak of the separation he still thought was coming and there was nothing Louis could ever do to deserve this boy.

But he could try.

“Can you-“ Louis’ voice was thick with emotion. He tried to clear his throat, but the words still came out as barely more than a whisper. “Can you bring them in here, please?”

“Are you sure?”

Louis nodded, beyond words, and used the next few minutes before they returned to try and find some sense of calm in the emotional storm brewing inside him. He knew he must have failed when Harry walked back into the room with slumped shoulders and a wary, almost guilty look on his face. His arms were curled protectively around the bundle in his arms, and Louis wasn’t sure whether he was protecting Louis from her or her from Louis.

Louis tried to relax his face into an easy smile and reached out his hands, beckoning Harry over to the bed and leaning forward to receive their daughter. Harry was reluctant at first, wondering if this would be the last time he would get to hold her, but eventually placed her in Louis’ waiting arms. Immediately Harry was struck with how easy and natural he was with her, just tucking her into the crook of his elbow where she just settled in and then it was like she was a part of his own body. Well, he supposed technically she was a part of him for the last nine months.

“She looks like you,” Louis commented, his fingertips tracing the rounded features of her squished face.

“W-what?” Harry hadn’t known what to expect when he was told Louis wanted him and the baby back in his room, but it wasn’t this.

“Look at these big pouty lips,” he explained, pursing his own out as his thumb ghosted across her cupid’s bow. “And I believe that’s a bit of curly hair peeking out around her ears, yeah?”

“I don’t- what does that mean?”

Louis looked back up at him then, genuinely smiling the full-size version of the exact replica he’d just been admiring. “Do you remember that voicemail I left you a few months ago?” he asked, and Harry’s brow furrowed. “I mean, technically you couldn’t remember. You didn’t even get to listen to it.”

“Right. Yeah. The apology.” Harry was shaking his head, still trying to wrap his mind around what any of this had to do with anything.

“Well yeah, technically. I was sorry. But that’s not all I'd said. I know should have told you back then, but it wasn’t- I wasn’t sure it was real.”

Harry’s heart leapt into his chest, begging for the hope inside it to be loosed. But he couldn’t take that chance because if he was wrong, it would destroy him. He had to hear the words. “What are you saying, Lou?” he whispered quietly.

Louis inhaled deeply, letting himself adjust to the true gravity of this moment, before admitting for the second time, “I love you.” Harry wasn’t quite sure he’d heard correctly, but Louis looked him directly in the eye as he said, “I love you, Harry Styles. And I’m sorry I didn’t realize it at first – everything felt different after I lost my mum. There were some things I was completely numb to, and some things that would hit me so suddenly and so violently that I thought I might get crushed by the force of them.” He gave Harry a small smile – he tended to produce the latter, and at the time it had seemed easier to choose not to feel anything. But in the end it would have cost him everything. “But you saved me. You fought for me even when I didn’t want to fight for myself and I _love you_.”

Harry held his breath, not because he didn’t have anything to say – god, there were a thousand things running through his mind – but rather because he thought he must be dreaming and didn’t want to take any chances that he might wake up.

When Harry continued to remain still, Louis was worried that perhaps he was too late and his mouth worked to fill the awkward silence. “And I love our daughter – even more than I knew one person was capable of loving another - so I called the agency. She’s officially ours now. Or, well, mine I guess if you’ve changed your mind.” Harry’s eyes snapped up and if Louis could bear to look in them he would have seen that they were almost angry. “I- I think deep down, some part of me always knew I wanted this,” he continued, deeply ashamed at just how long it had taken him to realize it. “Not just from the moment I held her, but from the moment I met you. You took me by surprise - you both did - and the last time my life changed so unexpectedly it nearly destroyed me and I there was no way to know for sure whether or not this would finish the job. And I still don’t know what the future holds – whether I’ll be a doctor or a millionaire stockbroker; whether you’ll be a world famous rock star or a professional juggler – but if there’s anything everything in these last few years has taught me, it’s that you can’t always choose where your path will take you. But you can choose who you want to be by your side as you walk it. And I choose her,” he nodded down to the sleepy newborn. “And you, if you’ll still have me.”

Harry's heart had gone rogue by now, operating entirely independently and filling his whole body with butterflies and he was coming dangerously close to having a full-on out-of-body experience. But some part of him still couldn’t believe this was really happening and he needed Louis to say the words. So, like he had so many times before throughout the course of their relationship, Harry asked, “What do you want from me?”

Coming from anyone else, it would have sounded exasperated or bitter. But because it was Harry, the question was thoughtful and sincere – he’d always asked about what Louis wanted and always actually cared about the answer. “I’m sorry, Haz. I know I’ve been… well, I _am_ difficult. And I’ve probably already ruined everything between us a thousand times over. And now that you’ve seen the horror that my once glorious ass has become, you will probably never want to touch me again. But I love you, and if- if you still want to… I would very much like to do this. Ehm, with you. Like, together.” Harry remained still as a statue, but Louis finally asked the question that now seemed lame after all the life-altering things he’d just said. “So… will you be my boyfriend?”

Harry’s answering smile was slow at first, the implications of Louis’ question just beginning to dawn on him, but it was dazzling in its intensity. “Don’t you think you’re being a bit forward?” he asked cheekily. “We’ve only just had a child together.”

Said child then let out a little mewling cry, already protesting her father’s poor taste in humor, and they both dissolved into fits of laughter. The outburst left Louis feeling a bit lightheaded, and Harry climbed into the bed behind him so he would have the entirely necessary support of Harry’s muscled chest to lean against.

The three of them settled in, just enjoying being able to spend time together without the burden of a ticking clock. After several minutes, though, Louis prompted, “You never answered my question,” choosing to keep his gaze on the tiny fist curled around his finger. He thought he knew the answer, but he’d put Harry through a hell of a lot over the past… well, ever since he’d met him, really, and he certainly didn’t want to assume.

Harry twisted around and tilted Louis’ chin and kissed him deeply and thoroughly, which caused Louis to tingle in places that he was sure were going to hurt like hell once the drugs fully wore off. Once Louis’ glazed eyes returned to focus on Harry’s signature smirk, he deigned to answer.

“There are so many things I want to be for you.” Partner. Lover. Husband. Father. A thousand different things that could only be realized and fulfilled over a lifetime of loving each other. He leaned down to press another light kiss to Louis’ lips before whispering, “But I’ll start with ‘boyfriend’.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all who stuck with this story - your comments and kudos give me life and I hope I was at least able to entertain you for a little while. 
> 
> Stay safe, I love you,  
> xx


	16. Epilogue - Five Years Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINE! For all my lovely readers who insisted upon an epilogue...
> 
> Enjoy,  
> xx

“Why is daddy so sparkly?” the little girl in Louis’ arms asked, squinting every time the stage lights reflected off Harry’s outrageously sequined top.

“Well, you like to get all dressed up whenever there’s a big event, don’t you?”

Her eyes went wide as she looked back up at Louis hopefully. “Is the big event my birthday?”

“Oh is it your birthday?” he teased, squeezing her so tight that she squealed and squirmed to get away. When their antics earned a cocked eyebrow from Harry in the middle of his back-and-forth with the crowd, Louis stopped with his parental torturing. “That is a big event, love,” he said, finally setting her down, “but also because thousands and thousands of people came here to watch daddy sing.”

Her forehead wrinkled in a miniature replica of Harry’s perplexed look. “But he sings all the time.”

“For us, yes. But that’s because we’re special – we get to see him all the time.”

She sighed in the way all little kids did – dramatically and with her whole body. “We haven’t seen him in forever!”

They video chatted on the phone almost every night, but apparently that didn’t count. “Well, this is the last night of tour so he’ll be home every night now.”

Echoing Louis’ thoughts, Harry began to wrap up the rapport that constituted the show’s intermission. “You’re all the best people in the world, and you’ve made us feel so welcome on our first world tour. I’m going to miss seeing you all every night.” There were some lighthearted ‘boo’s from the crowd, but Harry’s cheeky smile never wavered. “I know, I know, but I’ve got a couple pretty good reasons for wanting to take some time off.” He glanced off to the side of the stage and gave Louis and his daughter a little wink, turning the crowd’s complaints into a chorus of ‘aww’s.

“You hear that, baby girl?” Louis said, turning her around and pointing to the stage. “Daddy’s talking about us and how glad he is to be back home.”

She beamed and waved enthusiastically at Harry. He blew her a kiss in response and suddenly everyone in the crowd was trying to angle themselves to sneak a peek backstage.

“Now, this is usually the time I would ask if anyone’s got a birthday,” Harry continued, “but if you all don’t mind, I’d very much like if we sang to my baby girl today.” He looked to the side of the stage and asked, “Would you like to come out and have everyone sing to you, baby?”

The crowd went wild, and Louis had to put the noise-cancelling headphones back over his daughter’s ears for a minute before Harry shushed the crowd, barely contining themselves to a dull roar.

Louis took the headphones back off and knelt so he was at eye level with her. “How about it? You want to go out on stage with daddy?”

If it had been Louis, he would have murdered Harry for even suggesting that he go out in front of all those people. But because she was her father’s daughter, she loved being the center of attention at least as much as Harry – and it had taken an arena tour to satisfy that man’s ego.

Normally Louis would have been offended by just how quickly his own child bolted across the stage away from him, but seeing her leap joyfully into Harry’s arms while he twirled her around the stage more than made up for it. Some of the audience was still screaming, but a lot of them were legitimately crying and Louis was incredibly relieved to see that his fans loved them almost as much as Louis did.

Almost.

Harry had his daughter on his hip with one hand and held the microphone with the other. “Everyone, say hello to my daughter, Melody Jo.” There was an incoherent wave of sound from the crowd that vaguely resembled a greeting. “Say hi to everyone, Mellie,” he prompted, holding the mic close to her mouth.

“Hi, everyone!”

As predicted, there was another outbreak of unbridled but loving enthusiasm from the crowd, and she looked back up at her dad, both wearing matching dimpled smiles.

“How old are you today?” he asked once the room had quieted enough to hear.

“Five.”

“Five? Five! That can’t be right. It hasn’t been that long.” He was teasing her, but it was also genuinely hard to believe that he’d managed to keep Louis and Mellie in his life this long, even after his professional life turned into a bit of a circus. They discovered quickly that if they wanted to spend time together, they’d have to make the time – and Harry was just happy that Louis still wanted to make time. “There’s no way you were born _five whole years_ ago.” 

“I was!” she insisted. “You were there.”

Harry choked down his laughter – she definitely had Louis’ sass. “Indeed I was. Are you enjoying the concert?”

She nodded. “Uh huh. I like the singing, but I think maybe papa should sign you up to take Ms. Murphy’s class too because you’re really not good at dancing.”

Harry’s mouth popped open in mock offense as the crowd shouted their agreement.

“She’s not wrong,” Niall cackled from behind the drum set, and Harry shifted Mellie to his other hip, using the opportunity to flip him the bird behind her back.

“Well, then I guess it’s a good thing you all didn’t come here to see me dance, yeah?” Harry walked them over to the piano and set her beside him on the bench. “I believe I promised you one birthday song. Would you like to play with me?”

Though Mellie was surprised and delighted by her stage debut, her parents had been in cahoots for weeks about it and Louis had made sure this song had been an extensive part of her music lessons. His heart swelled seeing her little hands slowly and meticulously finding their way to the right notes, Harry’s supporting chords following her lead and even the crowd patiently dragging out each word until she landed on the next.

The song concluded to thunderous applause and Harry hugged her tight, kissing the top of her head. “Happy birthday, my love. Now back to papa with you – we’ve got a show to finish!”

Instead of letting her go, though, Harry swept her back up in his arms and raced to the side of the stage where Louis stood. Mellie still in his arms, he leaned down and kissed Louis like the first taste of rain after a drought.

Small hands pressed against Harry’s chest and he heard a quiet, “Ew, daddy _no_.”

Harry pulled away and saw his daughter’s nose wrinkled in displeasure. “She gets that look from you,” he said, looking back up at Louis.

Louis crossed his arms and shook his head. “Uh-uh. This girl is 100% you.”

Harry kissed the tip of his nose and saw Louis struggle not to pull the same face his daughter had just made. “Good to be home,” Harry said, pecking Louis once more on the lips before trotting back into the spotlight.

***

The rooms in the belly of the stadium had been quiet for hours, but as soon as the concert ended there was a flurry of activity. Champagne was popped and cake was eaten and there was laughter and tears as every said their goodbyes, not knowing if and when they’d ever get to have an experience like this again.

Harry, of course, took time to help clean up and thank the crew and make sure everyone knew how much he personally appreciated their contributions to the tour. By the time he was done and packed and showered, Mellie was passed out in Louis’ lap and Louis was not far behind. He took pity on them, wrapping Mellie around his neck and pulling Louis to his feet to take them to the car.

Harry was always amped up after a show and would normally be itching for an after-party right about now, but tonight was different. The band had opened for several major groups over the years, but this was the conclusion of their first headlining tour for their first album and he just… he was a little sentimental and wistful about the whole thing.

He would miss it, but with any luck there would be more albums and more tours. And, as he’d told Louis at the very beginning just before he agreed to sign with the label, he would always choose this first. Sitting in the quiet car with the two people he loved more than anything in the world.

When he pulled into the driveway of their large brick house – just down the street from the rest of the Tomlinsons – Harry had expected to have to carry both Louis and Mellie to bed. But Louis was used to running on very little sleep – or maybe he had actually learned to perform certain tasks in his sleep – and was unbuckling the carseat straps before Harry had even gotten out from behind the wheel.

“Why don’t you let me take her up?” Harry suggested. “Been a while since I got to put my baby girl to bed.”

Louis wrapped his arms around Harry’s torso and snuggled against him, burrowing his face into the soft fabric of Harry’s ridiculously expensive shirt. He slid his hand beneath the hem of the fabric and traced his fingers along the dips and ridges of Harry’s abs. “Only if you agree to put me to bed too.”

By the time Harry had gotten Mellie back to sleep – of course she had woken up en route and needed water and then to go potty and then a cuddle – he walked in to find Louis was propped up against the headboard in their room in a half-hearted attempt to read one of his medical journals with his eyes partially closed.

Harry plopped down on the bed beside him, stirring him back from the brink of unconsciousness. “How was work, _Doctor_ Louis William Tomlinson?” he asked, propping himself up on one elbow. He never got tired of telling people he was dating a doctor.

Louis had just enough energy to scoff at the formal address before beginning to drift off again, and Harry poked him in the side childishly until he set the book aside and looked at him. “What?” Louis asked, tossing the heavy book onto the nightstand.

Harry grinned unapologetically at Louis’ scowl. “I asked how work was today.”

Louis’ traitorous mouth began to twitch into the beginnings of a smile – oh how he’d missed being pestered by this man. “Oh, you know – stuck my hand between some legs, delivered some babies. The usual.”

After the birth of their daughter, Louis had decided he didn’t want to spend his entire future in medicine trying to prevent death, but rather to help bring in new life. He even worked out of the same hospital where his mum had been a nurse, and being there every day made him feel closer to her than he ever had in the research lab. 

“Sounds like fun.” Harry reached out a hand to cover Louis’ stomach. “Does it ever make you want to have another one?”

Louis suppressed a groan – this was not the first time the subject had come up. “I much prefer being on the other end of the stirrups, thank you.”

Harry’s hand drifted lower, sneaking beneath the waistband of Louis’ pants and beginning his own medical examination. “I bet I could change your mind.”

“I can be pretty stubborn,” Louis insisted, though he made no attempt to deter Harry’s actions. Louis wouldn’t actually be opposed to the idea of another baby – preferably on purpose this time – but there was one thing he kind of wanted to do first. “Not sure your daughter would like having to share your affections with another sibling though. Not after all that attention she was spoiled with tonight.” 

Harry withdrew his hand and sighed, twisting so that he laid on his back. “It was a good last night.”

“Are you sad that it’s over?” Louis asked gently, tucking one of Harry’s wild hairs back into place. “And now you’re stuck with boring ol’ me who likes to do jigsaw puzzles and go to bed at 10pm?”

Harry thought about it for a moment. Anne had traveled with Mellie to see him a few times, but Louis’ schedule hadn’t allowed for quite enough time for a visit other than between legs of the tour. And as much as Harry loved performing, it wouldn’t mean anything if he didn’t get to come home to this. “Nowhere else I’d rather be,” he replied honestly. 

There was so much adoration, so much warmth and contentment in Harry’s eyes and Louis never understood how Harry always could always manage to take his breath away with just one look. He managed to fall in love with Harry more every single day, and he didn’t even think that was possible.

But Louis was a man of science, and he was willing to spend the rest of his life testing that theory to find out if it was true.

“Good,” Louis said, and it was a good thing Harry’s hands weren’t still on him because he would have surely felt him trembling.

“Where are you going?” Harry pouted when Louis sprung up from the bed suddenly.

“Got a gift for Mellie to open at her party this weekend, but wanted to see what you thought about it first.”

Harry sat up, cocking his head at the sudden change in conversation. “What?”

“Was gonna ask you tomorrow, but I couldn’t wait.” Which was ironic, considering he had made Harry wait five years already.

“Ehm, okay. What is it?”

Louis stared at his confused expression for a moment before walking over to his dresser. He opened the drawer and pulled out a gift bag, reaching in to pocket the small box that was hidden inside while it was obscured from Harry’s view.

Louis returned to the bed, placed the bag on Harry’s lap, and then stepped back, staring at him expectantly. “Well, open it,” he prompted impatiently.

Harry took an extra second to let his face communicate to Louis how truly odd he was being before cautiously pawing through the tissue paper. He half expected something to pop out and scare the crap out of him, but instead he pulled out a small, child-size shirt. It was bright yellow with purple lettering that, once unfolded, he could see read “Future Flower Girl”.

His brain was half a second behind his eyes because when he finally put together what those words meant, he was already looking with wide eyes at Louis.

Who was down on one knee.

Holding a velvet box.

“Harry Edward Styles,” he began, and damnit Harry was already tearing up which made Louis tear up and he hadn’t even said the thing yet. “Fuck, I’ll make this quick. I’m so proud of you. Seeing you out there tonight… I knew from that first impromptu performance in the diner that you were gonna make it here. And now you are, and it’s beautiful. You never gave up on your dreams, and you never let me give up on mine. And more importantly, you never gave up on us.”

Harry slid down off the bed and knelt right in front of Louis, wiping away the wetness on his face before putting his large hands around Louis’ waist and leaning down so their foreheads were touching. “Neither did you. You’re so amazing, I love you so much.”

“I love you too. So much. Even when it was hard. Even when we were angry. Even when I was scared. And I—“ Louis pulled away and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “Fuck, I’ve been thinking about this for months but I missed you so much and now you’re here and that’s all I can think about and nothing is coming out right.”

“You’re doing better than you think,” Harry assured him, kissing away the tears falling down his cheeks.

Louis opened his eyes and Harry was practically glowing and it was times like these that Louis bemoaned his lack of artistic prowess. “I wish… I wish I could have written some romantic song or something, because you always express yourself so beautifully that way. But that’s not how I’m wired.” Harry reached out to lace his fingers with Louis’. “For me, it’s my body that talks, that tells me how I’m feeling. And when I met you, my lungs could finally breathe again. When I’m with you, my heart beats just a little bit faster. When you kiss me, my knees go weak and butterflies erupt in my stomach. And when you touch me… god, my dick won’t shut the fuck up about it.”

Harry laughed wetly and placed a kiss on the back of the hand that was clutched in his.

“So when you left on tour, and saying goodbye to you caused my very bones to ache, I knew. I wanted – _needed –_ to spend the rest of my life with you. So,” Louis sat back on his heels so he could look up at Harry properly, “as long as you don’t mind trying to build a life together in between dance recitals and hospital shifts and world tours…” He let go of Harry’s hand to pop open the box in his palm and reveal the shiny platinum band. “Would you please do me the honor of becoming _Mister_ Doctor Louis William Tomlinson?”

Somehow Harry managed to simultaneously tackle Louis to the floor, kiss him senseless, and slip the ring onto the one finger he’d always kept empty of any jewelry. “I thought you’d never ask.”


End file.
